


faceless

by falindis



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ancient Evil, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Assassins, Curses, Dark Magic, Dysfunctional Family, Elven Mythology, Found Family, High Fantasy, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Magic Mirrors, Magical Artifacts, Multi, Originally in Finnish, Possession, Regret, Saving the World, Slow Burn, Tragic Romance, Translation, Violence, Weird Original Crossover Between DnD & Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, with bits of humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27941870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falindis/pseuds/falindis
Summary: Nevis is an assassin whose face changes like the wind. One second he is a wise old man, the next a young elven prince, the third a beautiful traveler from a distant land. But with a face comes something else: an entire life. The more faces he tries, the more he loses of himself. And finding one's own face is not that easy, when one has struck a bargain with the God of Chaos.A.K.A. a found family story featuring a cursed assassin, a city guard with a shady past, an eccentric elven druid who can turn into a bear, and a 14-year old dwarven girl occasionally possessed by a malevolent deity; loosely based on the Dungeons & Dragons campaign "The Ghosts of Saltmarsh" and the tale of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character/Original Male Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. The Eyes of a Killer

**Author's Note:**

> Alright.
> 
> The first time I'm posting an Original Work on AO3, and I'm both nervous and excited.
> 
> This story began roughly a year ago part of a writing challenge, as a loose retelling of my ongoing DnD campaign combined with some elements from Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. However, what began as a casual writing project soon became really important and serious, developing into an over 70000-word-length novel. Now, as the story nears its end, I decided to begin translating it from its original language of Finnish into English, because there are many people that I wish to share the tale of Nevis, Sigrid, Ada and Freya with. I aim to update roughly once a week.
> 
> So, I hope this story brings you all the feels, from joy to sorrow and rage to desire, with even the occasional laugh. Enjoy!

In the tenth district, the Legion searched for a killer.

It was a Saturday morning, and the Upper Market was bursting with folk. It was a plethora of different sensations: rectangular stalls were decorated in fabrics of all shapes and colors, and merchants bellowed offers in ten different languages. The smell of grease, burning wood, and a thousand different scents hung in the air.

Amidst all of this a skin-changer leapt from body to another like a snake shedding its skin. First, he was a dirty young beggar boy, with fear and hunger in his eyes. His small, bare feet pattered against cold stone, until he crashed hard into a thickset merchant in a green hat and a velveteen vest.

“Scram”, the merchant grunted. The beggar turned his back, shame hot on his cheeks. He squeezed his empty hands into fists and felt…

 _…the weight_ of a bag of gold between his fingers. The coins clattered in his hand as he tossed the bag in the air once, twice. Everywhere he turned, he could smell profit. His chest swelled with pride as he thought of the excellent bargains he had struck that day. Not even the beggars swarming in his feet could turn down his mood for the day.

Suddenly the scent of gold was outmatched by a strong perfume: rose and chamomile. The merchant’s nose turned towards the source. A woman, moving through the market as gracefully as a goddess. Her long dress or the bustling crowd did nothing to slow her pace. Her voluminous curls were the color of shining copper, and they rippled like waves as she moved.

That moment the merchant knew exactly, what was still missing from his day.

The merchant approached the woman through the crowd. He touched her shoulder, causing her to turn around. Her hair stirred and revealed a pair of pointed ears. The woman was an elf.

The merchant ripped his hand away as if she were a live snake.

“I apologize. I thought that you were someone else.”

“You are forgiven”, the woman said. Her smile was a silver crescent in a face of gold, but her eyes smiled not. They were bright green. And cold.

The elf left. The merchant shook his head to be rid of her scent. He turned towards a food stall and smelled…

 _…humans_ , everywhere. Dirty, greedy and insolent humans, who could not keep their hands away from what was not theirs. Even now the she-elf could feel their gazes on her skin like a brand, touching, devouring with their filth-riddled hands. The elf held her breath as she made her way through the square, past a horde of merchants selling ugly, meaningless trinkets that they claimed to be something special.

“Turn here, my beauty! A dress to match the fire in your hair!”

“Dazzle lovers with a beautiful scent! Lilac, heather, rosehip…”

“Boost your fertility with the pendant of Nelene! Or a medallion of Ileia, and you shall find true love!”

“Jewels of the finest quality, real dwarven handiwork!”

 _Charlatans._ Frauds, all of them. They worshipped false gods, spoke the wrong tongue, swore misguided vows. All they saw in her was a pretty face. A piece of meat, which left nothing behind but a pile of bones.

The she-elf reached her destination. The end stall was simple and colorless. The smell of metal and oil hung in the air. The weapon seller had the dark, dead eyes of a shark. They were not the eyes of a merchant.

 _“Falael,_ sister”, the salesman greeted in the elven tongue. The tips of his ears were sharp, but his bearded chin revealed him to be half human. “What can I get for you this time?”

“Your best bow, brother”, the elf replied. She pressed a bag of coin on the merchant’s hand. It jingled not with gold, but with elven stones. The bag vibrated slightly as it changed owner.

The salesman leaned below his table and pulled out a decorative longbow curved out of silver wood. The she-elf grabbed the bow and flashed a smile like a knife. She attached the bow onto her back, disappeared into the crowd, and heard…

 _…metal armor_ clinking against the street as the Legion lumbered clumsily into the market. There were ten of then, and they raked blindly through the crowd, still searching for the same, frightened beggar boy who escaped their clutches at the Lower Market. They would never find him among the crowd. At least not as he was.

The black-eyed half-elf made his way to the edge of the square and climbed nimbly onto a market stall, using it as leverage to get to the roof. He found a lookout spot behind a stone chimney, from which he eyed the market below. The Legionnaires were goldfish among the rainbow-colored crowd.

The Legionnaires had a shadow. Although they did their best to draw attention away from their associate, they did not fool the half-elf’s heightened senses. The shadow was short and wore a pitch-black hooded coat, which hid their face in the darkness. But the half-elf would have recognized them anywhere. Even in his dreams.

As if sensing the eyes on their back, the mage lifted their blue-flamed eyes and met the half-elf’s gaze across the market. Without a word, the mage pointed towards the half-elf and drew a Sign in front of their face.

Magic crackled in the air, vibrated like the horizon on a hot summer day. The half-elf’s face grew hot. Dry skin became greasy, the mask melted off his face like wax. Black hair faded into silver, and his eyes were no longer dark, but the color of the rainbow crowd.

The Legion rolled towards him as a golden wave.

“Empty the square!” their commander yelled. “Make room!”

Mutters arose from the crowd. Speech. Screams.

“Catch the killer!”

The killer saw the wave but felt no fear. His calloused fingers met the dagger on his belt. The metal hissed as it was pulled free. The killer drew breath and aimed. The hiss became a command as the dagger left his hand. The command grew into a yell, which drowned out the death-rattle of the struck Legionnaire. Blood splattered onto the stones.

Another knife. Hiss, command, yell. Death. Blood.

“Stop!” the order came closer this time. “Put down the knife! STO—”

He never finished his sentence. The third dagger pierced the air, then virgin skin. Chaos erupted. Shrill screams. Thumping of feet. Toppled stalls and vegetables trampled underfoot. The human mass on the market moved simultaneously into two directions, like dough twisted for a bun.

The chaos offered a way for escape. The killer slid down the roof onto the opposite side of the market. The street he landed on was dark and empty. The sounds of the market could be heard afar, and the sharp, ozonic smell of magic still hung in the air.

The killer ran. He followed the thin street downwards, looking over his shoulder, until he was certain he had lost his pursuers. He stopped onto a quiet street, onto which a laundry house had tossed their wastewater. The killer kneeled over to the water and began washing his hands, almost compulsively, although they bore not a single drop of blood. Once he ended his task, his hands were dirtier than before washing them.

The killer had changed his skin several times that day. But unlike a butterfly that emerged reborn from its chrysalis, the killer did not feel lighter. For each new skin left a thin shell over his own self, until he was covered in layers and layers of dead skin that he could never scratch away. Until he no longer remembered how his own skin felt like.

The killer’s eyes were black like the street around him, but these were not the dead shark-eyes of the weapons seller, or the green emeralds of the she-elf with copper hair. They were not the greedy slits on the bloated merchant’s face, nor the starved eyes of a poor beggar boy.

These eyes belonged to a killer who was tired of killing.


	2. An Ordinary Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“It’s highly… peculiar for the City Guard to get involved with the druids. Or other elves, dwarves, halflings… anyone, that’s not human, to that matter. Grems must be truly desperate to ask for outside help.”_
> 
> _The elf raised his chin, and momentarily Sigrid saw some of that famous elven pride in the line of his jaw and the tilt of his gaze. “Well. I believe it is quite clear that this is no longer simply a City Guard matter.”_
> 
> A city guard, a druid, a dwarf and an invisible, gnome-sized bartender meet at a tavern, discussing a future mission. Oh, and there is also him. The other you.

The Burned Bush was known for hosting shady folk.

On an ordinary night, its dark wooden booths and tobacco-reeking hallways attracted outlaws from all fields of crime. Brawlers who came only looking for a fight. Swindlers and conmen who snitched wallets with a smile on their lips. Seducers and seductresses who cared non for feelings in the game of hearts.

But this was, by no means, an ordinary night.

A fair-haired woman sat alone at the counter, sipping rum out of a round glass. Although she had sat there for a while, the glass remained almost untouched. As if out of necessity, the woman took a sip out of her drink. The taste twisted her face into a grimace.

“Fuck”, she cursed to herself. “Like pisswater.”

“You humans are such strange beings”, a voice from behind the counter remarked suddenly. No-one was visible, however. “Why drink something that you hate?”

“For the memories”, the woman grunted. Her voice was hoarse, as if she had smoked a bit too much tobacco. Yet nothing else in her current state would have revealed her for a smoker.

“You are far from the usual customer”, the invisible bartender stated.

The woman laughed dryly. “Is that so? Now what in the world would give that away?”

“You could pass for a brawler. You curse and smell like a sailor. You’ve got scars, and your arms are thick as hams in winter. But your eyes reveal that you hate violence. And places like this. A swindler you are most definitely not. You always tell the truth, even when it hurts. And well, you’d never pass for a seductress, not as long as you dress like a man.”

The woman glared at the empty counter. Her eyes were blue, almost gray. “I had no idea I came to a shrink.”

“Why did you come here, then?”

“Work.” The woman eyed the empty tavern – which, in fact, was not empty at all. “Why is it so… dead in here?”

“Hour of the wolf. The worst drunkards got sent home an hour ago. The regulars won’t come in until another hour, for breakfast. May I interest you in some soup?”

The woman chuckled. “I think I’ve had enough to drink for tonight. Speaking of that, I believe you got your first customer. That one of your regulars?”

The bartender’s voice grew shrill with excitement. “How do they look like?”

 _“He._ Long and tall, like a twig. Or an overgrown water flea. Hair in a thick braid. Dressed in moss.”

“Moss?”

“Wait.” The woman squinted her eyes. “Maybe it’s lichen.”

The newcomer came closer. His movements were slow, yet fluid, and strangely soundless. At a closer distance one could truly see that his clothes were made of plants, but this was no lichen or moss. It was wood.

“Morning, traveler”, the bartender greeted. “Soup?”

“Morning, halfling. You may come away from behind the desk.”

“What!” the bartender yelled, outraged. “I am _invisible,_ not a stinking halfling!”

“Stop the pretense. You fool no-one. I could smell you from the door.”

“Cursed elves”, the halfling muttered as he clambered onto the counter. Turned out he was not invisible after all. The opposite, in fact – it was difficult _not to look_ at him. In many ways he looked like a regular human: an adult male, with a large nose and a shaved head. His plump stomach was covered by a bartender’s apron, behind which he wore a neat, collared shirt. The only exception, really, was his miniscule size. He could have passed for a garden gnome.

“What are you staring at?” the halfling grunted. “More drinking, less ogling!”

“I do not drink”, said the elf dressed in wood. “I came here for work.”

“You, too?” the woman asked. “What kind?”

The elf pulled up a chair and sat by the counter. When he spoke, he avoided looking anyone in the eye. It was a strange quality for an elf. Usually they adored attention above all. “Have you heard of Ravenhill manor?”

The woman lifted her fair brows. “Have I? Everyone at Nethermoor has heard of it. It’s been abandoned for decades. They say that it’s haunted.”

“It is not haunted.”

“Really? What makes you think so?”

“Ghosts do not stab anyone to death.”

Suddenly the door flew open behind them. A gust of wind blew in a whirl of leaves, making the candles in the room flutter. It tousled the newcomer’s thick curls and the hems of their wide pants.

“What’s the tea?” she chirped. The girl was a dwarf. Short and stocky, with a round face spattered with freckles. Her fiery red hair was as thick as a cloud, bouncing which each angry step.

“Just telling ghost stories”, the woman from the counter replied. “Want to join?”

A grin split the dwarf’s face in two. “I _love_ ghost stories.”

The girl climbed onto a chair next to the woman. The halfling on the counter cleared his throat.

“How old are you, girl?”

“Fourteen”, the dwarf replied, almost proud. “What? That bother you?”

“Somewhat”, the halfling coughed. “What’s a girl of your age doing at this hour, at a place like this? Shouldn’t you be home with your parents?”

The girl’s chin grew taut. “I don’t have parents.”

“Very well”, the halfling sobered. “Perhaps I can find something for you to eat.”

The bartender disappeared behind the counter. He became invisible once more.

The woman took a new sip out of her rum. The elf stared at the desk, fingers crossed. The dwarf flung her short legs in the air, while she fiddled with the strange pendant she had hanging about her neck. It was bright red like blood, and the surface flickered and rippled, as if a bright liquid sloshed within.

“My companion here”, the woman gestured at the elf, “told me strange things about Ravenhill manor. He claims that it’s _not_ haunted.”

“Everyone knows it’s haunted”, the dwarf said to the elf. “Haven’t you heard the tales? Strange sounds, clattering and clonking, lights coming on at night. And they say there’s skeletons in the basement. Or do you claim the stories lie?”

“No”, the elf replied. “I simply claim that it is not haunted.”

A bowl of something hot appeared in front of the dwarf. A short sniff revealed it to be pea soup. A greedy light lit into the dwarf’s eyes at the sight of food. She grabbed the bowl and began drinking it like juice. The soup colored the corners of her lips green.

“Why does Ravenhill interest you that much, by the way?” the dwarf inquired between her sips.

“Because I want to find what is happening over there.”

The woman seemed to realize something, all of a sudden. “Wait. _You_ are Ada? I thought you were a woman.”

The elf hummed. “Ada is simply a nickname. My real name is Adnaith. How do you know me?”

“I am Sigrid, of the City Guard. My friend Ruth went missing a week ago. She was last seen near Ravenhill. I was tasked on investigating. Commander Grems told me that you might be of assistance.”

Ada nodded and offered Sigrid his hand. Sigrid took it. The grasp was firm and strong.

“So we are colleagues”, Sigrid stated. “How does someone like you end up working with the City Guard?”

“I know the area. Ravenhill and its surroundings belong to the druids. I have spent my whole life there.”

“A druid, I see. Well, that’s a first.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s highly… _peculiar_ for the City Guard to get involved with the druids. Or other elves, dwarves, halflings… anyone, that’s not human, to that matter. Grems must be truly desperate to ask for outside help.”

The elf raised his chin, and momentarily Sigrid saw some of that famous elven pride in the line of his jaw and the tilt of his gaze. “Well. I believe it is quite clear that this is no longer simply a City Guard matter.”

“What about me?” peeped a voice from the other side of Sigrid. “I want to hunt ghosts, too.”

“That’s not going to happen”, Sigrid said. “It’s not your place. You’re just a child.”

Suddenly the air in the room grew heavy, as if before a thunderstorm. Sigrid’s throat tightened. The candles began to flutter again, and the smell of ozone filled the air. But the most frightening sight of all was the dwarf herself. Her flaming hair flowed around her face like it was actually on fire. Her dark eyes were full of cold hatred. The pendant in her neck pulsed akin to a dying star. And the dwarf was by no means simply a fourteen-year-old girl, but something _much, much older._

“That’s the final time you’re calling me a child”, the dward hissed. Beneath her high voice there was now another, scraping the earth like a rolling stone. The pressure in Sigrid’s chest tightened, until she felt like suffocating.

Then, something happened. Ada’s hand reached over Sigrid to the dwarf, pressed against the pendant in her neck. It was pulsing with cold. Ada’s tongue spoke words in a language that they did not understand. Sigrid felt her ears pop, and the pressure in the room dissipated. The candles burned without flickering. The scent of rum, leather and wood hung in the air. And there was no longer anything strange in the little dwarven girl.

Sigrid sucked in a lungful or air, but then noticed that she no longer needed it. As if nothing had ever happened.

“Saw that?” the dwarf asked. “I’m useful.”

Sigrid nodded. Ada’s hands returned to his knees. The elf said nothing, but his brows were tilted in a concerned frown.

The halfling stomped back into the space. “What the fuck happened here? Can’t I even take a whiz without someone opening a gateway to hell?”

Sigrid smiled. She fixed her ruffled hair and straightened her back. “Looks like our party is almost complete.”

The dwarf licked soup from her lips. “Almost?”

“Yes. Grems told me that I would get two assistants. One is you, Ada. The other is called Faceless. But it’s not you, dwarf, or is it?”

“I have a name, you know. It’s Freya.”

“Freya. Are _you_ Faceless?”

Freya said nothing. Her gaze was stuck in the corner of the room, where shadows were stirring strangely. The flickering fire suddenly revealed the outlines of a stranger. She was short and stocky, with a round face spattered with freckles, and her fiery red hair bounced which each angry step.

“I am”, the newcomer spoke.

It was another Freya.

*

One by one, the other Freya went through the faces of all figures in the room.

The blonde woman, distrust permanently etched on her scarred face. The dark elvish man, who seemed to love trees more than other elves or men. The gnome-sized halfling, whose ears and nose were too big for his face.

And at last, the young dwarven girl, who was her mirror image.

The real Freya pinched herself, as if to wake herself up. Nothing happened. The other Freya repeated the gesture. It was not actually necessary – she was a creature independent from the real Freya. She just enjoyed the confusion the gesture brought.

“But… it’s me”, Freya said.

“But… it’s me”, the other Freya repeated.

The halfling went pale. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell unconscious on the counter.

“Now look at what you’ve done!” the real Freya yelled. “You made the gnome faint!”

“Halfling”, the elf corrected. Then he turned his wise eyes upon the other Freya. “And you… _what_ are you?”

“Who”, the other Freya said. “Are you deaf, elf? I’m Faceless.”

The elf was completely dumbstruck. “I have never seen magic of this kind.”

“It’s because you’re a dumb druid. You never move outside your home woods.”

The real Freya, surprisingly, smiled. “It even _sounds_ like me!”

“I am you”, Faceless said. “But I can also be him.”

Faceless closed their eyes. When he opened them, he noticed he was observing the world from entirely new heights. Even his senses had heightened. He smelled entirely new scents that he had not previously noticed at all. Some were… odors, really: dried vomit, spoiled wine. Some, quite pleasant. There were four spices in the pea soup: basil, black pepper, mustard, and marjoram. Sigrid’s hair smelled of salt and the ocean. And his own clothes carried the thousand scents of the forest.

“Ada!” Freya gasped. Faceless could tell exactly, what note the dwarf spoke in.

“It is me”, Faceless replied. As he did so, he realized how rough his Common was. Simultaneously he knew that if he so desired, he could also speak Elvish, Dwarvish or Halfling. But he also understood the Elder tongue – the language spoken by spirits. Or Elemental, the language of ancient runes.

 _“Es keryth”,_ the real Ada cursed. The other Ada raised his brows in amusement. He would not have expected the elf to be so… vulgar.

“Or then I could be her”, the other Ada said. He smiled at Sigrid, and as he did so, became Sigrid herself. After looking at the world through elven eyes, everything seemed dull and colorless. The taste of rum still lingered on her tongue. For some reason Faceless felt _annoyed,_ although she had not been that a moment ago. Her muscles and joints were sore. Was she getting old?

“Stop that, now”, the real Sigrid ordered. “Reveal your true face.”

Faceless sighed. Layer by layer, they began peeling off the enchantment. It hurt, like peeling dead skin hurt. When he finally returned to himself, a dull pain throbbed throughout his body, as if he had just been carrying a heavy load. That pain did not go away.

Faceless wore his own face again. His dull, awful own face, which was nothing unique or beautiful. Short, grayish hair, which hung lifeless against his scalp. Ears that were too sharp for a human, but too round for an elf. Colorless eyes, which at that moment seemed brown, because everything else in the space was that too. After all, they always reflected what was around him.

For that was his true nature – to become something else.

“So you are Faceless”, Sigrid said. “I get where your name comes from, now.”

Freya seemed both curious and confused. “How did you do that?”

Ada nodded. “How?”

“A little trick.”

“Do it again”, Freya urged.

Faceless grinned. He would have wanted to oblige. His own body felt tight, heavy. In another body he would at least momentarily feel release from this weight that he eternally carried. But he could not remain there forever. And each time would hurt more than the last.

“Not now”, Sigrid said. “Tell me, Faceless. Why did Grems want you?”

“So far, everyone who has gone near that manor has been killed. I might prove useful.”

Sigrid’s expression did not soften. “Maybe.” It was obvious that she did not like him.

“I was told that I would be working alone”, Faceless said.

“Grems lied. Perhaps he knew that you do not play well with others.”

“He was not wrong.”

Faceless and Sigrid glared at each other for a moment. Faceless soon noticed, that a staring context with Sigrid was surprisingly difficult. Her entire being seemed to exude a certain… authority. It was rather frightening and reminded Faceless of his own mother.

“Well then, Faceless”, Sigrid broke the silence. She still did not stop staring. “What kind of man are you? Neat tricks will only get you so far.”

“I know more than tricks”, Faceless replied. “I deal in death. Unnoticeably. Poisons, daggers, arrows, that sort. I can be invisible.”

“An assassin, then.”

“That, too.”

“Very well, mister Assassin. Do you have a name?”

“Faceless.”

Sigrid did not even blink. “Real name.”

Faceless felt his chin tighten. Names had power. They, like any weapons, could be wielded against their owners.

Yet, he found it difficult to say _no_ to Sigrid.

“Nevis”, Faceless said. “That is my name.”

Sigrid’s lips twitched. That was all. Then her face was back to stone.

“Pleasure to meet you, Nevis the Faceless. I look forward to working with you.”

“Certainly.”

The room still felt heavy, like during Freya’s previous spell. Already then Nevis knew that this would be no usual task. He just wished that he would have understood, how unusual.

“We must be the world’s strangest crowd”, Freya said.

Nevis shrugged. “I have seen stranger.”


	3. Ravenhill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But although Ada loathed the childish squabble of his companions, there was something in this party that also drew him towards them. Sigrid claimed to be a member of the city guard, but her overall bearing was much more rugged, rather a bandit than someone who upheld the law. Freya claimed to be a fourteen-year-old girl, but the entity that lived occasionally inside her was far from that. And Nevis, then… he was a tougher nut to crack._
> 
> The four companions make their way to Ravenhill manor, where they inspect the trails of a murder. But a murder is not the strangest thing at the site. There is something definitely off about these four companions.

The moss was caked with dried blood.

“The body was discovered here.” Ada crouched among the foliage, almost perfectly camouflaged by the earthen tone of his clothes. “The druid was on his way from the Wildwood onto Whitepeak, when for some reason he decided to take a detour through Ravenhill. This is the result.”

Nothing was left from the druid except a pool of blood.

“What happened to the body?” Sigrid inquired. She squinted her eyes towards the route Ada had just pointed out: first east towards the dark thicket of the woods, then true north, where rolling hills turned into jutting mountain peaks. The day was overcast, and the highest peaks were hidden beneath the low-hanging clouds. The furthest of them were nothing but blue mounds in the horizon. Whitepeak glistened with snow.

“We buried him”, Ada replied. “But not before we figured out the cause of death. Varith – that was his name – bled out. You can see it clearly. But he was not attacked here. It was in the manor. That is where the tracks lead.”

Ada pointed further uphill, towards darker patches in the moss leading towards a building on the top of the hill. Even from further away the manor seemed somehow off-putting. The stony walls were faded and covered with moss, and the black ceiling had rotten and partially collapsed. The tall windows were covered with dark shutters, which cracked and rattled with the wind. A fence built of round stones drew a rectangle around the building.

“Varith ran”, Ada read the tracks. “He was not followed. Those, who attacked him knew, that he would not make it. Here he tripped and fell. He began dragging himself along the ground. He tried to rise up again, but could not do it. He did not try again.”

“I understand”, Sigrid nodded. “A slashing wound, then?”

“Yes. That is how I know it was not a ghost.”

“Why did he go in?” Freya asked all of a sudden. Before that she had barely paid attention towards the tracks – she had been too preoccupied with the fancy stones jutting from the moss. Obsession with stones and dwarves always came in the same package.

“Good question”, Ada replied. “We went through his belongings before, and nothing seemed to be lacking. Thus, it seemed strange that he would have gone there for supplies. The only explanation I come up with is that he saw something that he should not have seen.”

“Ghosts”, Freya gasped.

“Or then something entirely else”, Sigrid pondered. “How long ago was this? I need to know everything. The weather, time of date, reason of travel.”

“Two days. The weather was clear. Varith left just before sundown. Whitepeak is sacred to the druids.”

“Strange time of day to travel.”

“Elves see better than humans in the dark, and we do not feel cold like you do. The ritual he wished to complete could only be completed at full moon.”

“What kind of ritual? Could it be that someone at the manor wanted to stop it?”

Ada cleared his throat. He seemed awkward, all of a sudden.

“I do not believe so, unless they are interested in Varith’s…” Ada glanced at Freya before finishing his sentence, “…love life.”

“Oh.” Sigrid’s face was tinged with red. “No more questions.”

Nevis let out a deep sigh. He could no longer stay in the sidelines. “Hey. Isn’t it about time that we discuss things with their real names. This was about se—”

“Hush!” Sigrid chided. “There’s a child!”

Freya’s eyes flickered with flame, and suddenly Sigrid seemed to regret that she had called the dwarf a child.

“A minor”, she corrected. “In any case, it is irrelevant. We have already dallied too long. Time to go inside.”

“Very well”, Nevis stated. He cupped his hands around his mouth and sucked his lungs full of air. “HOY GHOS— ahh!”

Sigrid poked him with her elbow. Hard. “Quiet, dammit!”

“Ouch”, Nevis rubbed his side. “And watch your tongue. There’s a minor.”

Sigrid’s gaze shot blue daggers at him. “Do you want to die?”

“Maybe.”

“I wonder who the actual children here are”, Ada grumbled. He had already moved closer to the mansion, measuring the walls and corners with his gaze. Freya followed him like a stray hound. Sigrid and Nevis came after, as far apart from each other as they could.

The yard of the manor was bleak and bare. Besides from mosses and lichen, nothing grew on top of the hill. Nevis could not understand why someone had wanted to build in such a place. But on other hand, the whole North was a mind-boggling place. It was always cold. The winters were too dark and the summers too bright. The sky was always one of two colors: black or white. If it had not been his only option, he never would have gone there.

Nevertheless, the view from the top of the hill was outstanding. Dark woods in the east, mountains in the north, villages in the south and the ocean in the west. It was a perfect view into every direction, all of which seemed to be equally far away. When Nevis realized that, he also realized another thing – the face of the house did not point south, like houses usually did, but southwest. All four corners of the house pointed into the cardinal directions.

“How were we planning on doing this?” Nevis asked. “Should I just knock and ask, whether anyone is home?”

“The front door is not an option”, Sigrid said. “That is where travelers would be expected to come. It would be a sure trap. Let’s see, if we could find another entrance.”

Sigrid and Ada began circling the house west, Nevis and Freya east. Freya started skipping across the yard, her hair bouncing in tune with her steps. Nevis moved lightly and soundlessly like a ghost. He hugged the corners; the shadows were his friend. The southeastern side of the house was full of covered windows. But not a single door.

Suddenly Nevis noticed a strange bump in the back of the yard. From further away it almost seemed like a tall, moss-covered stone – similar to those druids collected on top of their graves. A closer look revealed that it was not simply a stone. Nevis held out his hand and approached the statue, wiping away moss from the cold surface of the stone.

The stone looked back at him.

Nevis covered his surprise with a laugh. He scrubbed moss away from the stone, revealing a human face beneath it. Time had left its mark on the statue. The nose had cracked away and fallen, and only two stubs were left of the ears. The cracked stone twisted a permanent frown upon the statue’s surface.

“What did you find?” Freya chirped. “Wow, that’s ugly.”

“Some old statue”, Nevis said. He had focused his gaze on the lower part of the statue, which seemed to continue far behind it, like a tail or a platform of some kind. It was entirely covered with moss and crowberries. But then a gust of wind began to shake the shrubs, and Nevis thought he saw something _behind_ it. Darkness, among which light glittered. Like gold.

“Nevis”, Freya pulled him from his thoughts. “Could you change into that?”

“A statue? No. It’s not alive.”

“What about that?” Freya pointed towards a circling raven, which let out a mighty croak.

“No. It’s a bird.”

“I know it’s a bird. I’m not stupid.”

“I didn’t call you that. What I meant was that it’s not a person. I can only change into people.”

“Real people?”

“Yes. To be precise – people that I have _met.”_

Freya was engaged in a staring competition with the statue. “But how does it work? Now that you’ve changed into me once, could you do it again? Anywhere?”

“Once I’ve learned somebody’s form, yes. But the transformation isn’t perfect, then. Something might go wrong. Memories are fallible. For instance, if I remembered the color of your hair wrong, the transformation would be different. The strongest the effect is if I touch the person I want to transform into. That is when I can replicate all of their qualities perfectly. The almost same effect can be achieved, if I just observe someone long enough…”

From Nevis’ left, he could suddenly hear a whistle. He turned towards the mansion, when Ada’s head appeared behind the northern corner. The druid gestured towards himself and then disappeared back behind the wall.

“I think they found a door”, Nevis stated. He turned his gaze back on Freya, but she was no longer there. She had disappeared.

“Fun’s over, dwarf. Come out.”

There was no reply. And then the screaming began.

*

Freya fell into the dark.

The glint of gold. Soft moss. Crumbling feet beneath her legs. A wordless scream. Flailing arms and kicking legs, both too short to grasp onto anything. Black, black, black.

 _“Agrakaan”,_ Freya’s lips prayed in a language she did not understand. _“Urkoth.”_

The name echoed and chimed through the dark. It lit the pendant on Freya’s neck into flame. The fire was cold. Freya fell down as a burning star.

The earth embraced her. Her back met the ground, but there was no hurt, simply softness.

The red glow in her chest died out. Freya just had the time to notice the glint of gold and hear the loud, approaching hissing, before she was consumed by the darkness once more.

*

“What the fuck happened here?”

Sigrid’s face felt hot. As soon as she had heard the scream, she had ran across the yard, her sword unsheathed. Next to her, Ada was somehow holding a full-length wooden scepter with a yellow stone on top. Sigrid had no clue where the druid had pulled it from. His ass?

But the secret storage of Ada’s staff was at that moment the smallest of her worries. Freya was nowhere to be found.

“She just fell into the ground”, Nevis spread his hands cluelessly. The mere gesture made a vein on Sigrid’s forehead throb. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Are you sure?” Sigrid quizzed as she sheathed her sword. “You didn’t touch anything?”

Nevis tapped at a surprisingly human-looking patch of moss. “If this doesn’t count.”

“So you _did_ touch it. This is all your fault!”

Without further ado, Sigrid pushed Nevis out of the way and leaned over the gaping hole in the ground. The bushes of crowberry scratched through her clothes, as she lowered her face underground in the hopes of finding Freya. It was almost pitch black below. She could just make out Freya’s small form in the middle of a tiny spot of light far away. Sigrid was surprised to see Freya still standing. The drop had to be at least 30 feet.

“Are you alright?” Sigrid asked.

Freya nodded. Relief flooded into Sigrid’s chest. “What’s down there? Can you see anything?”

Freya had no time to reply. _Something_ dashed at her from midst the darkness, and Freya screamed. She began flailing her hands wildly while she stomped the ground with her feet. All the time the darkness fed on her, flooded over her, devoured her in thick coils.

_Snakes. Too many to count._

Sigrid lifted her head from the hole and looked at her three companions. “Anyone got a rope?”

“I do”, Nevis replied. The rope was already in his hands. The assassin unraveled the rope and tossed it into the dark pit. The other end he began tying against the statue.

“Grab the rope!” Sigrid yelled. The hissing from below grew louder. A red light flashed. Sigrid heard screaming and a low rumble, which made the earth shake beneath her feet. For a moment she was afraid to fall down herself. It was no fall she could handle without getting hurt. Her thick armor would maim her when she struck the ground. And she did not have the natural stamina of dwarves.

Suddenly something _whizzed_ by her ear. Sigrid flinched backwards, lifted her gaze, and saw Nevis standing over him, crossbow pointed. The assassin loaded a new bolt and pointed it towards the hole, aiming, then firing again. Sigrid stroked right ear, which tickled as if tiny sparks were dancing on her skin. But there was no blood.

_That was close._

“Are you out of your mind?” Sigrid screamed. “You could have hit me!”

“I never miss”, Nevis answered coldly. He reloaded and shot again. The bolt whistled and sunk into the darkness. This time, Nevis did not even bother looking at it while aiming. What if he would hit Freya?

“Stop!” Sigrid yelled. “Let me do this! I’ll go down to get her!”

A red flash. So powerful this time, that Sigrid felt the shockwave on her face. But for some strange reason this explosion did not felt warm. Her whole body felt frozen solid, as if her heart had stopped.

Then, it became silent, and the rope attached to the stone went taut. Nevis stepped backwards from the hole. Freya’s head peeked out a moment later. Her hair was even more frizzled than usual, and red splatters of blood colored her cheeks. Other than that, she seemed unharmed.

“Seems like you were too slow”, Nevis said, an infuriating grin on his face. “And look, she’s just fine. Because of me.”

Sigrid did not manage to say a single word. She was far too furious for that.

*

Being an elf was both a gift and a curse.

Due to the superior senses it gave him, Ada was often aware of things that others would never notice. That is how he had discovered the door at the northeastern corner of the building. It wasn’t hidden behind anything usual, and even when Ada felt the door with his hands the surface felt perfectly even, without a handle or hinges. Only after Ada closed his eyes and _believed_ that there was a door in front of him, did it reveal itself to him. After that he could not understand, how he had not noticed it before.

This was by no means an ordinary house.

Ada did not wish any piece of the quarrel of his companions. He was far too old for that. And when he said too old, he actually meant it. After three hundred years everyone who had lived less than one lifetime seemed like a child. The only thing Ada adored in them was how they all lived like no tomorrow, for each day could truly be their last. But other than that… they bickered over the most meaningless things, and could not see further than the tips of their own noses.

But although Ada loathed the childish squabble of his companions, there was something in this party that also drew him towards them. Sigrid claimed to be a member of the city guard, but her overall bearing was much more rugged, rather a bandit than someone who upheld the law. Freya claimed to be a fourteen-year-old girl, but the entity that lived occasionally inside her, was far from that. And Nevis, then…

He was a tougher nut to crack. Nevis didn’t actually claim to be anything he actually wasn’t. But his ability to transform to someone else at any moment made it far more difficult to see, who Nevis _really_ was. The strange magic that Nevis bore in his veins was something Ada had never seen before. It was magic, there was no doubt of that, but it was not obvious at all, unlike with mages, who always carried a revealing trait. This magic, spell, or whatever it was, was a part as essential to him like an arm or a leg. Overall, there seemed to be hardly anything special about him.

Even at that moment Nevis looked like an ordinary human – with the exception of some minor details, of course. It was hard to tell at first, but Nevis was in fact half-elf. His ears were too sharp to be human, his skin a shade too light. So light, in fact, that it almost looked blue. Although he was still young, his hair was close to white, and as he moved it seemed to float around him, transforming constantly like quicksilver. Only his eyes were the clear window to his enchantment. At that moment they were grey like the sky hanging above, silver like the surface of a blade or a mirror. But as soon as Nevis stepped to the shadows of the building, his eyes reflected the darkness around him.

He seemed like a half-elf, acted like a half-elf, moved like a half-elf.

Still, Ada could not shake off the feeling that Nevis was also _something more._


	4. Potpowder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“There are fairies of the air, of water and thunder. Mistresses of stone and sand. Spark fairies, dust fairies and everything in between. There are fairies in cities, as well. I swear you have run into one as well. When wind drifts leaves in the corner of a street. When wood creaks in the corners of an old house. Or when an object falls from the shelf without you touching it. Ghosts are different. Restless spirits, that have been stuck in this world against their will. Due to a violent death, for instance. Ghosts are always a malevolent force. They wish to hurt people, for they feed on fear. Finally, ghosts cannot affect the material world. That is how I knew Varith was not assaulted by one.”_
> 
> The companions enter the manor and run into unexpected threats. Sigrid's patience with Nevis grows thin.

Orders rained from Sigrid’s lips like a hail of arrows. _Ada, go last. Freya, stay with him. Nevis, follow me. Don’t touch anything. Stick together._

Nevis heard the orders, but he did not have the mind to care. He had stopped caring a long time ago. Certain experiences tended to do that.

“Nevis”, Sigrid barked at his ear. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

“Sig”, Nevis grinned. “Are you done talking?”

A vein was bulging on Sigrid’s forehead. _“Don’t_ call me that.”

Nevis raised his brows. _Appears I struck a nerve._ “What about Rid, then? Or Cici?”

“None of those. We’ll go inside, and you’ll shut up. I don’t need your ‘playful’ comments.”

“Alright, Cici.”

Sigrid’s face was as flushed as a tomato. She took her left hand to the doorknob and muttered something to herself. Her right hand rested on the hilt of her sword. The knob turned downwards, and the door groaned as it opened.

Suddenly, something happened. The blonde hairs in Sigrid’s neck stood upright. The red color dissipated from her face. Her grey-blue eyes were large and bright, as if she was about to burst into tears. And it was not the only strange thing. Behind them, Freya drew a sharp breath, her face almost as pale as Sigrid’s. Ada, however, seemed like his own, usual self.

“Did you hear that?” Freya whispered. Her hands had gone to the pendant on her neck.

“Yes”, Sigrid answered, her voice shaking.

“What?” Ada furrowed his eyebrows. “I did not hear anything.”

“Me neither”, said Nevis.

Sigrid listened to his surroundings for a moment, before she opened the door wider. Color began to return to her face. “It’s over now. Let’s go.”

“Wait”, Ada interrupted. “What did you hear?”

“Speech.” Sigrid swallowed, as if even thinking of it was difficult. “I did not understand the words, but the meaning was loud and clear.”

“What was it?”

“A warning”, Freya said. “Well? Do you believe in ghosts now?”

“I won’t believe in anything before I see it.” Sigrid took a step forward. But although her movements were sure, echoes of fear still lived on behind her eyes.

They moved forward a step at a time. The room around them was not actually a hallway, more of a large, rectangular room, empty besides the spiderwebs that hung on the walls. A ripped, dark-grey wallpaper hung on the walls, practically oozing gloom. The shutters let in thin rays of sunlight, and motes of dust danced in thick clouds around them.

“I do not sense anyone in this floor”, Ada stated. The jewel of his staff glowed lemon-yellow. “But let us move carefully. In case of traps.”

Sigrid nodded. She led them into the next room – this time onto a long hallway lined with multiple doors. In the end of the hallway there was something diagonal and dark, perhaps a stairway. It could be the lobby.

“Freya, come with me”, Sigrid said. “We shall go left. Ada and Nevis, right. Let’s see if we can find any clues of what happened.”

The door to the room on Nevis’ right was open. He stepped in. Just like the room they had come from, this one was bare. There was a tall wardrobe on the wall, doors flung wide open. There was nothing inside. A rotten couch stood next to it, the upholstery in shreds and eaten by moths. A dank, musty smell hung in the air. Nevis did a quick round around the room and checked the cabinet for secret hatches and compartments, but found nothing. They returned to the hallway, and Nevis stole a quick glance towards the room Sigrid and Freya were investigating in. It looked like an office of some kind. A thick, wooden desk stood in the corner of the room, with an empty bookshelf leaning next to it. Otherwise, the room seemed empty.

“Anything?” Nevis asked.

“All empty”, Sigrid replied as she felt the space behind the bookshelf. “What about there?”

“Same.”

Freya seemed very interested in the desk. She was settled in the small space beneath it, and could stand there without crouching down. Freya spread her arms and felt the sides of the table. Suddenly she stopped.

“Oh!” she cried out. “I think I found something!”

She pulled out her finding.

“A key”, Sigrid stated. A very small, silver key, which would fit only a very small lock.

“Maybe it’s dwarven”, Freya said. “Or a fairy key.”

“Fairies do not use keys”, Ada noted. “They cannot lie. If one of them stole something, it would be instantly known.”

Freya hopped excitedly from beneath the desk. “Have you _seen_ a fairy?”

“I see them constantly, in the Wildwood. The fairies and druids work together. Druids make sure the forest stays in balance: they look after everything living. The fairies have a similar task, but they take care of non-living things. The weather, for instance. There are fairies of the air, of water and thunder. Mistresses of stone and sand. Spark fairies, dust fairies and everything in between. There are fairies in cities, as well. I swear you have run into one as well. When wind drifts leaves in the corner of a street. When wood creaks in the corners of an old house. Or when an object falls from the shelf without you touching it.”

Freya gasped. “Fairies are ghosts?”

Ada shook his head. “Ghosts are different. Restless spirits, that have been stuck in this world against their will. Due to a violent death, for instance. Ghosts are always a malevolent force. They wish to hurt people, for they feed on fear. Fairies would never do that. Finally, ghosts cannot affect the material world. That is how I knew Varith was not assaulted by one.”

“But what about the flickering lights? Didn’t the ghosts do that?”

“Here is where things get complicated. Ghosts cannot slam doors or make lights flicker – at least not in this world. But sometimes, when a spirit is restless, or really manages to terrify someone, their powers grow. The curtain between this world and the next tears. Sounds and lights can come through, for they have no mass. Ghosts cannot. That is where the phenomena stem from. But they are nothing more than an illusion. An echo from another world.”

“So they cannot hurt me?”

“No.”

Freya’s squeeze on her key tightened, and her shoulders relaxed. Only then did Nevis notice, how tense the dwarf had been. How afraid.

She was still a child, after all.

From the corner of his eye Nevis saw a flicker of _something_ upon Sigrid’s face, as if the sun had shone upon her face. Then it disappeared again, and Sigrid was back to her old, determined self.

“Let us continue”, she said.

They returned to the hallway.

The following rooms were more intriguing than the last. The room on the left was some kind of storage. Sigrid found two bottles of clear, red liquid – healing draughts, if Nevis’ eyes were not mistaken. In addition the room was filled by shelves and shelves of empty bottles, and the floor had traces of a blue, dust-like substance, which glistened as light hit it.

Nevis and Ada explored the room on the right. It had a desk as well, but this was in a better shape than the last one. Under it there was one, locked drawer. The keyhole, however, was too big for Freya’s fairy-key.

“I always carry tools for a situation like this.” Nevis pulled out a metal set of lockpicks. He chose one of the right size, fit it into the lock and turned it, until he felt it hit the sweet spot. Nevis closed his left eye and _twisted,_ and the lock popped open. It was a satisfying sound. Nevis could not help but grin – what kind of treasure had he found this time?

Nevis discarded his lockpick and pulled the drawer open. The grin melted from his face. He had not expected this.

Books. Two, to be precise. They were dressed in thick, brown leather, into which their names were carved in foreign runes.

“This is elemental”, Ada said from behind his back. “The above book is on metals and their properties. The one below deals with transformations.”

“Interesting”, Nevis rolled his eyes. “A crazy alchemist lived here.”

“Possibly. The blue dust we saw in that other room seemed like potpowder.”

Nevis’ eyebrows furrowed. He had moved to the back of the room, where there was a door leading to another space. “What?”

“Potpowder. Con artists use it for their tricks. It allows the transformation of an object into something else.”

Nevis opened the door. The room in front of him was a lounge of some kind. Two, dusty chairs and a long-dead fireplace were the only objects in the room. “That could be useful.”

“It is, if one uses it right. If I used it to transform a rock into a lump of gold, you might believe me. It would weigh and feel roughly similar. But if the object that I transformed was a piece of wood instead… you might suspect that something is wrong.” Ada began exploring the spaces behind the paintings on the walls.

Nevis had moved to the fireplace. With a fast glance it appeared like it had not been used in ages. All that was left of the fires was a pile of charred coal. The stone around it was blackened, worn, and covered in a thick layer of dust. Still, something seemed… _off._ Nevis began to fondle the coals with his hands. Regular coals. Until something strange happened.

One coal was heavier than the other. It felt more like a piece of metal. As Nevis turned it in his hand, he heard a clattering sound.

“What did you find?” Ada asked.

“A coal”, Nevis replied, looking at his hand. But what he saw there was no coal at all. It was a small, metal box, which could only fit a small, metal key. “Or… not.”

“Potpowder”, Ada stated. “It is everywhere.”

Nevis lifted the box and put it in his pocket. As he did so he suddenly heard a strange sound. It did not come from the box or Freya or Sigrid. It was more of a… rustle. A rustle that grew louder and louder. It seemed to come from within the fireplace. So Nevis put his head inside the fireplace and saw…

… _spiders._ Countless of them. There were all shapes and sizes. Hairy and hairless. Black and brown.

And all of them had their eyes turned upon him.

Nevis froze. He had never seen that many spiders at once. And although there were certainly more frightening things in the world, a few things made the skin crawl like an army of spiders.

Nevis took a careful step backward. He moved extremely slow, as if he tried to catch a fly beneath a glass. Perhaps the spiders would not notice him, if he simply… _slid_ away.

But the spiders were not flies, and they did not fall for the same tricks.

The first spider fell onto Nevis’ head. Then the second. Third. Their hairy, sharp legs crawled along his spine, finding their way beneath his clothes. Nevis felt each hair on his body stand upright. He flinched backwards, so fast his back hit the chair behind him. A thick cloud of dust _poofed_ into the air, and Nevis sneezed violently. The spiders ricocheted off his body like a hail of arrows. Now, free from their grasp, Nevis took a tighter grip of the chair behind him and pushed it towards the fireplace. One of the spiders was hit, and its long legs were crushed beneath the chair. But more and more just kept on coming – it was like an endless, black-brown wave of spiders.

“Fuck”, Nevis cursed, turned his back, and ran for his life. “SPIDERS!”

It took four, long leaps to reach the hallway. Ada just seemed to notice what was going on. He said a word in elvish and used his staff to raise a smoke-like barrier around him. But the spiders seemed to ignore him – they still followed Nevis, like his tormenting was their only task in life.

Panicked, Nevis grasped the first object he could find from his belt. It was a bottle of oil. Without further thought, he flung the bottle backwards towards the spiders. The flask broke as it crashed on the floor, drenching the mass of spiders in oil like vegetables in a pan. Nevis pulled out his dagger and let out a gasp of relief.

And crashed face-first into Sigrid.

“What the hell?” Sigrid cried out. The dagger fell on the floor in a long arc. The scratching sound came closer and closer. “Look where you’re going!”

Nevis did not reply. He simply fumbled at his dagger. Too late. The floor was already overrun with spiders.

“RUN!” Nevis screamed. He pushed Sigrid aside and ran as far as he could. Nevis reached the end of the hall and looked over his shoulder.

Sigrid was not as fast. The spiders had surrounded her. Tens of them were climbing up his armor, trying to make their way in between its small cracks. Sigrid pulled out his sword and tried to swing it at the bugs, but could catch only few at a time. And a new swarm would always take their place.

“Sigrid!” Freya cried out. She was standing at the doorway, staring at the sea of spiders with his mouth wide open. As he did so, the ocean split into one separate river, heading straight towards her. Freya let out a high, ear-piercing scream. Her pendant began glowing red. All the spiders that approached her went stiff and dead. But although they fought and fought, spiders kept coming along.

“There’s no end to them!” Sigrid swung her sword and stomped her feet. “Nevis, do something!”

Nevis kept fumbling with his pack. Then he remembered the flask of oil he had tossed. His hand met a small, rectangular box. Matches.

Nevis opened the box, pulled out a match and struck it. “Let’s burn the bastards!”

“Are you mad?” Sigrid gried out. There were so many spiders on her that it seemed as if she was dressed in them. “What about me?”

“I hope you’re not afraid of fire.”

Nevis lifted the match. Sigrid’s eyes widened.

“NO!”

The match fell…

…and stopped midair.

It floated, hung in the air as if on an invisible string. Behind it, Sigrid’s face was frozen in a soundless scream. Freya’s hair floated around her face as if she was underwater. The spiders froze in place. Time stood still.

A lemon-yellow light flooded the room. Nevis had to close his eyes and to protect his face with his hand. The smell of flowers filled the air.

The light died out, and Nevis put down his hand. He blinked, not believing his eyes. Where there had previously been spiders, were now flowers. Hundreds and hundreds of lemon-yellow flowers, covering Sigrid as if she had rolled on a summery field. Time flowed regularly at last. Ada stood next to the door, holding his staff with two hands. Pearls of sweat glistened on his forehead.

Sigrid startled. Freya’s scream was cut short. The no-longer burning match clattered on the floor.

“Flowers?” Freya asked. Rows upon rows of dried petals were piled in her feet.

“Flowers indeed”, Ada replied. The yellow glow of his staff had begun to die out.

“You took your time”, Sigrid stated.

“Spells often do.” Ada took a step further onto the hall, eyeing it from left to right, as if to check for any more stray spiders. “Is everyone all right?”

Freya nodded. Sigrid swiped the flowers off her with her hand. Then her eyes met Nevis.

The blue daggers of her gaze were now swords. “We need to talk.”

*

“Varith was attacked here”, Ada’s voice came from far away, as if through a layer of water. The druid stood in the hallway and observed the tracks of blood with his usual, druid-like precision.

“How do you know?” Freya asked.

“See the blood on the handle? Or in the corner of the door. He almost got out. Maybe if he was only a little faster… he would have gotten out in time.”

Ada said a few words in elvish, as if some kind of prayer. But Sigrid did not listen, not truly. She focused on hating Nevis.

Just the sight of the assassin made Sigrid’s head hum. Pound, to be more exact. As if someone was banging a hammer in the back of her brain. She could see only red. The tips of her fingers and toes were tingling. She was only a hair away from punching her way through a wall.

Sigrid could not even recall the last time she had been as furious. She thought she had left that part of her behind. But the past was like her aunt Astrid: it came knocking during the most unfortunate times.

“What did you want to talk about?” the assassin asked. He was spinning a small, silvery box in one hand, whereas in the other he held the tiny fairy-key that Freya had given him. A tilted, obnoxious smile decorated his face, and his colorless eyes held a wicked glint. As if he had enjoyed almost killing them all a few moments ago.

But on the other hand, what else would you expect from an assassin?

“Stop that”, Sigrid hissed. Each clink of the silvery box was like a stab onto her temple. “Is that the reason we almost died? A tiny box?”

“It could prove useful”, Nevis shrugged. “There was some potpowder inside. You can never know where that would come in handy.”

Sigrid extended her hand. “Give it to me.”

Nevis let out an incredulous laugh. “What?”

“Give it to me.”

“And why would I do that?”

It took every last bit of Sigrid’s self-control not to wipe that grin away with a blade. “Do I really need to answer? I wouldn’t trust you even with a jar or air, even if your hands were glued onto it! You break everything you touch! I tell you to do one thing, and you do the exact opposite!”

Sigrid realized she was yelling, but did not care. The hum in her ears grew louder by each second. The jabbing pain sharpened with each beat of her heart.

“You’ve got some nerve to demand me that”, Nevis replied. “This box belongs to me. I did not risk my life and nearly get swallowed by spiders to give it to _you.”_

 _"Risk?”_ Sigrid forced the word from between her teeth. “You didn’t do _shit!_ You ran away and forced us to take care of your mess so you wouldn’t get your hands dirty! Not to even mention that you would have _set me on fire!”_

Nevis’ smile fell an inch. “Perhaps I should have gone through with it.”

Sigrid’s jaw fell open. She could not believe her ears. The audacity! The carelessness! She was a member of the City Guard! And she let this… _murderer_ scold her like a child!

 _I wish you’d trip in the stairs and die,_ Sigrid gritted her teeth. _Slowly and painfully._

She wanted to say it. She wanted to _show_ it. She could already almost feel the hilt of her sword in her hand. The strength it gave her. The power over life and death. Just like—

_Flashes of lightning. Blood on a blade. On her hands. Her hair. Her face. Everywhere. High and low screams. The whipping rain on her cheeks. A clash of thunder._

_And laughter. Her own. The glint of light on the surface of an arcing blade. Dark splatters on the light deck of a boat._

—before.

“What went into you? Cat got your tongue?”

Nevis’ voice.

Sigrid blinked. Shook the heat from her fingertips. Let the redness fade out of her sight. To recede. Cool. Go. Disappear.

Sigrid took a deep breath and released it. Relaxed.

“I’m not going to go down to your level”, she spoke. Her tone was cool and even. “I just wish to do my job right. That is why we must all work together. It will get much easier if we learn to take care of each other. Or at least bear with one another.” Sigrid extended her hand to Nevis for a second time. “Will you hand me the box? Please?”

The last fragments of a smile fell from Nevis’ face. His features were white and expressionless, like a doll’s. Without any color or emotion. Just like his voice, when he slowly put the box out of Sigrid’s sight.

“No. And let me make something very clear. I am here only for one reason – to fulfill the favor that Grems asked of me. Not to make friends or to please others.”

Nevis closed the strings of his bag with a single, sharp movement, like the snapping of a neck. Dead silence fell into the room.

“Favor?” Sigrid asked quietly. “What favor?”

But Nevis had already moved to the next room.

“You’re a pathetic coward!” Sigrid yelled to his turned back. “You’d abandon us all in the blink of an eye, if that meant saving your own skin! And I don’t trust you one bit!”

There was no answer. Nevis was already out of sight.

Sigrid felt Ada’s hand on her shoulder. “Youngsters. Annoying, aren’t they?”

Sigrid nodded. But to be honest, she didn’t feel that annoyed. Not anymore. She just thought about Nevis’ words. _I did not come to make friends._ Of course not. A man like him could not have friends. It would require revealing, who he really was. That was what Nevis must have thought. If he did not even know the answer himself, how could anyone else?

 _But I do,_ Sigrid wanted to tell him. _I know, who you really are._

 _How?_ Nevis would ask her then. Smiling, the left corner of his mouth upturned. _How could_ you _possibly know who I am?_

 _How, indeed?_ Sigrid would reply. Her lips would smile then, but her eyes would not. They were sad eyes. Eyes, that had seen too much. _Because I used to be you._


	5. The Vale of Spirits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“For long, the high elves lived in tune with nature, like the druids of today. But the longer their reign carried on, the prouder and more arrogant they became. They wanted more. So they tapped into the power of the earth, began to channel it to their use. Their fortresses and roads became ever greater and more magnificent. But always they wanted more. They harnessed the power of fire, and the heat of their forges never died out. More. They called upon the air, bended the weathers to their will. But always the elves wanted more. They desired to control minds, to steer emotions. Complete mastery over nature. So the elves resorted to other means. Forbidden means.”_
> 
> The exploration of the manor continues. Ada shows the history of Nethermoor to Freya. Or the girl who both is and isn't her.

Nevis was striding alone along the corridor, when it happened.

He stopped clean in his tracks, as if he had run into an invisible wall. Stiffened. Froze.

_Fear._

It landed over him as a heavy, suffocating blanket which stole the air from his lungs. Squeezed his heart like a fist. Stilled his limbs and chained him into place.

Whispers, all around him. Suddenly the air was alive with them. Words formed by thousands of whispering tongues, all of which were a language that Nevis could not understand. He understood only one word.

He was not supposed to be here. He had to leave. Now.

Nevis tried to turn around, but his legs felt like jelly. As if he was in one of those dreams, where he woke up, but could not move his limbs. Something wet rolled down his cheek. _Was he crying?_

_Leave,_ the voices spoke. _Leave, or die._

It was dark. So very dark. And cold. The whispers came closer and closer. Nevis wished to block his ears from the sound. To hide. To get away.

His arms were lead. The air deathly cold.

_LEAVE,_ the voices spoke, closer, now.

**_LEAVE._ **

Nevis opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. His voice had been taken from him. He had no mouth left to scream, no face.

He was faceless.

He was no-one.

*

“Nevis?” Ada laid a hand on the half-elf’s shoulder. “Why did you stop?”

Nevis did not react at first. He simply stood in place in the middle of the empty hallway, frozen mid-step. Ada could not see his face. “Nevis?”

That seemed to wake him up. Slowly movement came back to his limbs, one body part at a time. A twitch in his fingertips, a tilt in his knees. Tension in his shoulders, in the curve of his jaw.

Nevis turned around, and he had the strangest expression on his face.

It was far from his usual grins. Not even a grimace, or surprise. In fact, it almost resembled terror. His eyes were large and glistening with tears. His bottom lip was trembling, as if he wanted to say something, but could not find the words.

“Ada?” another voice beeped in the elf’s ear. Ada turned around, felt Freya tug at his sleeve. “Could you tell me more about fairies?”

“Maybe later”, Ada replied absently. He turned back towards Nevis. But this time when he met the half-elf’s face, nothing was out of place. A bit of paleness in the cheeks, perhaps, but Nevis always looked like that.

“Well?” Nevis asked, a titled grin on his face. “Shall we?”

Ada wished to say something. To ask what had happened. He had never seen Nevis like that before.

_Vulnerable._

But then Freya pounced on Ada’s side, demanding one story after another. When Ada had recovered from the sudden interruption, Nevis was already far ahead him.

“Youngsters”, Ada sighed. _Always in a hurry._

*

Freya hopped along the hallway. Everywhere around her it was bleak and grey, but not frightening. Not anymore. That had already passed. Now she knew that ghosts could not hurt her. Ada had said so.

Freya did not recall her parents. In fact, she barely remembered her childhood at all. Some single memories. Flashes. Places. A city of stone underground. Dusty streets covered with blood and shards of glass. A red light in the end of a tunnel. Cold.

Then she had come to Nethermoor. It was a good place to live. A safe place. Small enough that it was far from restless. Large enough to hide in. If needed.

But did she need to hide anymore? She had a family now, although it was a strange one. Ada. Nevis. Sigrid. They all seemed to hate each other, and had little alike appearance-wise. Ada was tall and dark like a tree-trunk. Sigrid was sturdy and pale like a block of stone. Nevis was quick and ever-changing like water in a river. And then there was herself. The girl who both was and wasn’t Freya.

“Freya”, Ada asked her as they continued their tour along the second wing of the manor. There rooms there were large and few – they passed some kind of empty living space, then a dining hall. “May I ask you something?”

Freya slipped between a chair caught in her path. “What?”

“Who are you, really?”

Freya thought it was a silly question. “But you know who I am. Freya.”

“I did not mean your name”, Ada continued. “But other things. I know barely anything about you.”

“What is there to know about me? I’m Freya. I’m fourteen. I’m a dwarf. I like… fairies. And ghosts too, now that you told me about them. They’re not that scary, after all. Or evil. Just misunderstood. Because they’re so alone, and everyone’s afraid of them.”

Ada nodded. “I reckon the concept of evil is subjective.”

“Sub… what?”

“Never mind.”

Freya had to walk quickly to keep up with Ada. His steps were very long, although he walked with that funny yellow stick of his. “How it’s your turn”, Freya said. “Tell me about you!”

Ada raised his thick brows. “I did not know this was a game.”

“Now it is.”

“Very well.” Ada struck his wand against the floor. As he did so, Freya could swear she heard the sound of birds. But she did not only hear them – she also _saw_ them. A flock of swallows circling the blue sky, landing from one treetop to another. A squirrel climbing along a tree, carrying an acorn in between its teeth. A hedgehog scuttering among the moss, its spikes gleaming bright in the light that shone from between the trees.

“Three hundred years ago Nethermoor was only a moor”, Ada told. White tufts of cottongrass swayed in the wind. A lone craven croaked from the top of a pine. “It was not even called Nethermoor, then. It had another, elvish name, which is no longer in use. But that name translated to _the vale of spirits.”_

“Why?”

“Because it was said that here the curtain into the spirit world was at its thinnest. Torn, so to say. Far before druids or humans arrived, this was the land of the high elves. They built great fortresses and magnificent roads, along which they carried the most precious items from all four corners of the world.”

Freya could see them now. Proud, otherworldly creatures, clad in white, moving through the forest as lightly as a breeze wafting through the trees. Images fluttered in front of Freya’s eyes, the story building in time with Ada’s words.

“For long, the high elves lived in tune with nature, like the druids of today. But the longer their reign carried on, the prouder and more arrogant they became. They wanted more. So they tapped into the power of the earth, began to channel it to their use. Their fortresses and roads became ever greater and more magnificent. But always they wanted more. They harnessed the power of fire, and the heat of their forges never died out. More. They called upon the air, bended the weathers to their will. But always the elves wanted more. They desired to control minds, to steer emotions. Complete mastery over nature.”

“What happened then?”

“The elves resorted to other means”, Ada replied, and the images he had conjured darkened. The shadows on the elves’ faces deepened. The illusion morphed into the image of a dark chamber. A chamber full of hooded figures, with bloody daggers in their hands. “Forbidden means. They drew upon the power of blood, and the earth transformed to their desire. It became twisted. Corrupted.”

Now Freya could hear screams, crumbling stone, the distant rumble of thunder.

“The veil between the worlds was torn. So the earth turned against the elves and destroyed them. Only the purest of them survived. Those who had not resorted to forbidden means. They became the druids of today, and I am their descendant.”

Once more, the earth was at peace. Only ruins remained of the fortresses of that day. The mountains grew and chewed on their towers, the bogs swallowed their foundations under. All that was left was a group of druids, wandering along the woods. Quietly, their heads bowed.

“Three hundred years ago, when I was born, the oldest of us could still recall the high elves. They called this place _the vale of spirits_ as a reminder, a warning, for future generations to not tear that veil apart any more. And we have not done so. We druids protect and watch over the land, everywhere from Whitepeak to the Wildwood, from the Western sea to Nethermoor.”

“But Nethermoor is not just a moor anymore.”

“No.” Ada’s voice sounded bitter. The illusions around them had begun to fade, leaving behind only mirages, afterimages. “Humans arrived here a few hundred years ago. They built Nethermoor full of farms, temples, markets and factories. Us druids moved further and further north, until we finally settled into the Wildwood and the mountains that lie beyond. The city was named after the moor that it had been built upon. Nothing else was left of it but the name.”

The illusion had faded completely now. Freya was back in the dark mansion, in the doorway leading to a deserted dining room. On the other side of the hall there was nothing more but a bleak, empty room, decorated with spiderwebs and dust.

“That was a fine story”, Freya said, still lost in thought. Her eyes were stinging a bit. It had to be the dust. “Thank you, dad.”

Ada froze for an instant, as if he had crashed into a wall. His face twitched in a way that Freya could not comprehend. Maybe he also had some dirt in his eye.

“I showed you my whole tale”, Ada said after he had gathered himself. “Now tell me, Freya. Who are you?”

Freya saw no reason to lie anymore. Ada was family, after all.

“I am Freya”, she replied, “but I am also Urkoth.”

The name echoed and chimed through the room. Shuffled through the shadows. For some reason Freya felt good saying it. And to Ada especially.

But Ada did not seem glad to hear it. His entire being was the complete opposite. The druid’s head turned around slowly, mechanically, as if he was not a person at all. His face was stuck in one expression like a mask: eyes wide, mouth open. He did not seem to blink at all. His eyes were deep, dark, and so very, very large.

_“What did you say?”_

Suddenly Freya felt dizzy. Her head seemed to sway. Legs were light. Freya had to hold the doorframe to stay upright. Lights floated around her in round discs. In the midst Freya could make out a blurry face. A serious one, framed with fair hair.

Sigrid.

“Are you all right, Freya?”

Freya blinked and shook her head. She still felt strange, tired, but more clear-headed than before.

“Of course, mom”, she smiled. “Let’s continue.”

“If you’re ready”, Sigrid replied. She had a funny smile on her face. “I found something.”

“What?” Freya asked. She was back to her old, excited self.

“A hatch in the floor”, Sigrid replied in a mysterious tone. “Which leads into the haunted basement.”

“Oooh”, Freya said, awestruck. “I love ghosts.”

And she was not afraid. Because Freya was not all she was.

She was also Urkoth.

*

Nevis was acting strangely.

Sigrid was not sure whether it was result of the sharp words she had said before, or because something else was off. In any case, he was not himself. The constant grin on his face had transformed into a mask of terror. His movements were stiff and forced as he made his way to the stairs leading to the cellar. His hands tapped nervously on the dagger hung on his belt.

But Nevis was not the only thing that was off. Freya wasn’t feeling very well – she had almost fainted a moment ago. Ada was clearly shaken by the incident. If something could make an ageless elf nervous, Sigrid figured that was enough cause to be concerned.

Sigrid followed Nevis into the staircase, which creaked beneath her feet. But the creak also masked another sound. A too familiar one. A warning, which Sigrid had already heard before.

_Leave._

It was as if cold water had been poured on her back.

_LEAVE._

_Fuck!_ Sigrid gritted her teeth, her fist tightening around her longsword’s grip. _Get out of my head!_

But the voices remained. With each step they grew louder.

“Damn”, Nevis said suddenly. He had reached the bottom of the stairs. “What’s that stink?”

A terrible premonition came over Sigrid. How was this possible? She was a member of the City Guard. During her life she had faced all manner of thugs, villains and creatures – and now even a horde of spiders. After what she had gone through, ghosts and the undead should be a piece of cake.

_Nothing here to be afraid of._

Sigrid felt the stairs change into a stone floor. The cellar around her was pitch black save for some light that trickled from the top end of the stairs. And Nevis had not been wrong. The smell was horrible. Sigrid recognized it all too well.

The stink of death.

“Well, wouldn’t you look at that”, Nevis said suddenly. He stood practically next to Sigrid, but was almost lost in darkness. “There’s a body here.”

“What?” an icy coldness crept into Sigrid’s limbs. “Where?”

“There”, Nevis pointed forward. “But I figure you can’t see in this darkness. You’re human.”

“Wait”, Ada said from behind them. His staff had begun to glow a dim, yellow light. He stepped further onto the cellar, and the light grew brighter, revealing the floor and walls. And with them, the figure spread out on the floor – first an arm, then a mane of black hair. Dark stains on the floor, which had already soaked into the stone.

_No._ Sigrid took a step forward. She forced herself to look, although she dreaded what she would see.

“Looks like she has a chip on her shoulder”, Nevis laughed nervously. “Get it? Because she got stabbed. The knife’s still attached.”

“Dear heavens, is nothing sacred to you?” Sigrid bent over to the body and began to roll it around slowly. It was difficult, for the body was heavy. She was wearing thick, metal armor, and two crossed swords were painted on the front. The same kind adorned Sigrid’s chest.

Nevis froze. “Was she—”

“Ruth”, Sigrid said. “Yes. If I were you, I would keep my mouth shut.”

Nevis wished to protest, but then decided not to. Perhaps he was not a fully lost cause.

Sigrid focused on Ruth’s body. She tried to detach herself from the situation, remind herself that this was her work. Ruth had been dead for a while. The smell and state of her corpse told that. She barely looked like herself anymore. She was like a waxen doll, a perverse imitation of a human. Although Sigrid could still hear Ruth’s commanding voice in her head, she could not believe it belonged to the body in her hands. This was not _her._

Sigrid slowly pulled the knife off Ruth’s shoulder, examining it. It had a simple, wooden hilt and a steel blade – nothing that could reveal to whom it belonged. But one thing was certain. “Ghosts did not do this.”

“Who else, then?” Freya asked. Sigrid was shocked to note that the girl stood next to her. How did Ada even let the girl next to the corpse? This was exceptionally irresponsible of him.

“Move back, Freya”, Sigrid said. “You shouldn’t see this.”

“This isn’t the first time I see a corpse”, Freya replied. She did not sound shocked at all. As if she was talking about the weather. “What killed her?”

Sigrid cleared her throat. “Looks like human work to me.”

“But _why?”_

“That’s why we're here.”

Suddenly something caught Sigrid’s eye. A flash in the corner of the room, like thunder that flickered in the distance. The gem in Ada’s staff had begun to pulse in short, bright blazes.

“What’s going on?” Sigrid asked.

Ada lifted his finger in front of his mouth. “Someone’s here.”

The distant sound of steps. Rummaging.

Two things happened simultaneously. The hatch above them banged shut. Locked. There was a heavy thud, as if something landed on top of it. In the same time they could hear stone scraping against stone, as if the walls themselves were angry at them.

_We warned you._ The whole house shook. Millions of whispers hissed in Sigrid’s skull. But she was not the only one who could hear them. Nevis and Freya both covered their ears with their hands, fear etched upon their faces. And not only them. Now Ada too was perking his ears, listening to the dark. His long fingers squeezed his staff, hard.

_Now it is too late._ Once again Sigrid could not hear exactly words – but she took their meaning. _You cannot leave this place alive._


	6. Save Their Skin First, Then Yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Who are you?” the man stepped backwards, his face taut with fear. His axe-wielding hand had begun to shake. “Who the fuck are you?”_
> 
> _“I am pleased that you asked.” Faceless’ dagger reflected the red glow of the sconces on the wall. “I have been many things. A harbinger of news from behind the sea. A young elvish prince from a distant land. An elderly mage selling rare trinkets. Sometimes, a bit of them all. But for you…” Faceless leaned closer. Their voice was but a whisper. Eyes dark as the void ahead. “For you, I’ll be the last thing you’ll see before you die.”_
> 
> They are not alone. Battle erupts, and the grip of the manor's spell tightens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Archive warning (graphic depictions of violence) applies on this chapter.

Shadows filled the cellar.

Innumerable whispers and yells. Quiet and loud sounds. Sharp and soft ones. They all combined together into a seamless web of whispers, drowning out the outside world.

Nevis did not recognize a single sound, but in the same time he recognized all of them. They were all of his hopes and fears. Each dream and nightmare made real. And even though they were simply sounds, Nevis thought he could _see_ something behind them. Angry eyes lurking in the darkness, mouths twisted into screams of agony.

_Ghosts._

Each of the four companions was frozen in place, horror etched upon their faces. They stood immovable in the center of the cellar, like a herd of cattle headed for the slaughter. Unless they did something, the shadows would swallow them whole, pull them away to the other side.

But none of them were moving. They were trapped in worlds of their own.

Nevis saw faces in the midst of the darkness. Familiar faces, faces long forgotten. Faces young and old. Humans, elves, dwarves and halflings. At first glance, there seemed to be nothing in common with them. But the longer Nevis looked at them, he understood that _something_ brought them together.

“Father?” Freya asked quietly, childlike. “Mother?”

Sigrid’s face was pale and awfully sad. “Ruth?”

Ada blinked towards the emptiness, but he was not looking at any target in particular – rather he was looking _through_ it. “Varith?”

 _Varith?_ Nevis pondered. _Ruth?_ But they were…

“Dead”, Ada said, as if he had read Nevis’ mind. “We are seeing the dead!”

“Ghosts”, Freya gasped.

“Not ghosts. Simply illusions.”

“Father”, Freya said another time. She was still trapped in her illusions “Mother.” Freya reached out her hand, and the shadows came closer. Swept at her hand.

“No, Freya! They’re not real!”

Freya did not listen. She stepped forward. The shadows dragged her deeper. Their tendrils were now licking at her arms, reaching at her face. Freya gasped, fell deeper into the darkness.

And disappeared.

“Freya!” Sigrid cried out. “They got Freya!”

“No”, Ada said. Nevis wasn’t quite sure whether Ada was trying to convince himself or the others. “It is simply an illusion.”

 _Come closer,_ the shadows called. And Nevis wanted to go. There was something very attractive in the sound. But frightening also. It reminded him of the warm and fuzzy feeling that crept into one’s body after standing too long in the frozen air – and the accompanying urge to press one’s head against the snow, and sleep there forever.

“Break the spell!” Nevis urged Ada. “Before it gets us all!”

“I am trying!” Ada had closed his eyes. His hands wrapped tighter around his staff and pressed it against the floor. Ada began muttering words in elvish. But although his voice was quiet, each word was filled with power, each syllable stabbing the spell like a dagger. The shadows began to melt around them, and the whispers dissipated into nothingness. Suddenly the landscape was in shreds. Where there had been a cellar wall, was now a shimmering curtain. Light shone through its gaps into the darkness of the cellar. Ada’s words shredded it further, until only fragments remained. Until fear became just a memory.

The cellar wall in front of them had disappeared. Instead they could now see behind it, into a large, stone-walled space lit with burning sconces.

And they were not alone.

Freya lay unmoving on the floor. Her chest rose and fell in the dim light, so she was still alive, although unconscious.

Another form stood above Freya, sword in hand. A man with long, wheat-colored hair and a beard of the same shade, tied in small braids. Next to him stood a man with a body like a beer-keg, with a shaved head and unkind eyes. He was not wielding a weapon, but a lone axe hung at his belt.

“What the fuck?” the bald man cursed. “How did you break the spell?”

“It doesn’t matter”, Sigrid replied as she stepped forward. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Wheatbeard stopped her with a wave of his hand. “Halt! Not a single step! Or I’ll cut her throat!” His beard hovered over Freya’s exposed neck.

Nevis pulled out his crossbow and aimed it at the thug. “Drop the sword. Or I’ll kill you.”

Wheatbeard swallowed. He assessed the situation, clearly calculating the odds. The fingers of his thickset friend were creeping towards his axe. They stopped, however, once Ada’s staff pointed towards him.

“Surrender”, Ada demanded. “You are outnumbered.”

For some reason, that made Bald-head smile. “Are you sure about that?”

“HELP!” Wheat-beard yelled. “ATTA—”

His sentence was cut short by Nevis’ crossbow bolt, which struck him in the middle of the neck. There was a crash and a clang, as the man’s body fell onto the floor next to Freya. It was followed by the sound of approaching footsteps and hissing of steel. Screams. Figures poured onto the room from a hallway around the corner. Five in total. All were rather ordinary in appearance, dressed in cheap leather or torn rags. Four men and a woman. Two were wielding a sword, one a bow, one an axe and the last one a dagger.

“You’ll pay for that!” cried the woman wielding a dagger. Her lips were curled in an angry snarl. She raised her dagger and ran towards Nevis, dark braids swinging.

Everything happened fast, then. Ada raised a protective shield over Freya. Sigrid lifted her longsword and took a defensive stance. Nevis lowered his bow and grabbed a dagger from his belt. Sparks struck as the blade met the woman’s dagger and locked onto it. The world shrunk to the space between them.

“You killed him!” the woman roared. The blades detached from each other with a screech. “Murderer!”

Nevis’ face disappeared beneath the illusion, and his voice was sad as he said: “I had no other choice.”

The woman raised her dagger for a new strike. But this time she did not meet the half-elf’s dagger, but the sword of the doppelganger of the Wheat-haired man on the floor.

“Milo?” the woman whispered. Her voice sounded more beautiful than before. Faceless noted new details of her face that they had not noted before – the laugh-wrinkles in the corners of her eyes, the movement on muscles on her pale neck. The faint scent of leather and resin.

This woman was more than a friend to this man.

“How are you…” the woman blinked. Her eyes were brown, with floating flicks of gold.

“I’m sorry”, Faceless said. They saw the doubt on the woman’s face. The loosened grip of her wrist. Faceless did not even have to use strength to disarm her. Their sword ran through her heart before her dagger had fallen to the floor.

A heavy feeling swept over Faceless. They straightened their back and felt one layer of skin peeling away and being replaced with another. The hair grew longer and darker, becoming two braids. The bloodstains on their hands disappeared. Faceless bended over to grab the dagger they had dropped, from a body that looked like them. Then they turned towards their next target.

It was the thickset man who had traded words with them earlier. He was holding an axe in a raised hand, but the blade was clean – the man was simply standing still, wide eyes staring at the surrounding chaos. Ada’s staff shot yellow light, which transformed a flying arrow into a butterfly. Steel clanged against steel as Sigrid fought two thugs in the same time. The archer shot again, this time aiming at the unconscious Freya. The arrow met the magical shield and bounced onto the floor.

Faceless approached the bald man, bare dagger in hand.

“Ella?” the man asked, panic in his voice. “Where did the fourth one go?”

“I’m him”, Faceless replied. “Cannot you recognize me?”

Baldie shook his head. His eyes met first the dagger-wielding hand, then the corpse lying on the floor behind it. Suddenly he had trouble in finding his words. “But… but you…”

“What about me?” Faceless asked, a carefree smile on their stolen face. They were well aware that the transformation was far from perfect. It was always more difficult, when the source was dead. They were still clearly Ella, but different enough to induce a faint feeling of _wrongness._ Perhaps it was the empty gaze behind their eyes, or the too professional grip with which they held their dagger. In any case, it made Baldie even more nervous.

“Who are you?” the man stepped backwards, his face taut with fear. His axe-wielding hand had begun to shake. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I am pleased that you asked.” Faceless’ dagger reflected the red glow of the sconces on the wall. “I have been many things. A harbinger of news from behind the sea. A young elvish prince from a distant land. An elderly mage selling rare trinkets. Sometimes, a bit of them all. But for you…”

Faceless leaned closer. Their voice was but a whisper. Eyes dark as the void ahead. “For you, I’ll be the last thing you’ll see before you die.”

The blade sunk in. Blood splattered in a wide arch. Baldie fell to the floor, desperately trying to hold their gushing throat.

A new transformation took over soon. Faceless shook their fingertips dry, cracked their neck and stretched. They suddenly felt slow, clumsy. Nervous. Their arms and legs had shrunk, belly grown. All their hair was gone. And instead of a dagger, they were now holding an axe.

Each of the original five thugs was already dead, but more had taken their place. Sigrid and Ada both had their hands full trying to block swords and daggers. Sigrid’s fair hair was streaked with blood. An arrow had impaled Ada’s arm. Freya still lay motionless on the floor.

“Stop!” someone yelled.

Faceless turned towards the sound. Their head turned far too fast for the man whose body they were inhabiting at the moment. The source of the scream was a bearded, scar-faced man holding a longsword.

“Michel?” Scar-face asked, uncertain. “Is that you?”

“Who else”, Faceless replied. Damn, that this guy’s breath stank. What the heck had he eaten? A pound of garlic? “Shall we dance?”

Scar-face furrowed their thick brows. “With you? You wouldn’t find your own legs even if they stood in place of your nose.”

“Your loss.” Faceless spun their axe in a circle.

Scar-face’s eyes widened. “Michel, what—”

Faceless’ axe struck him in the middle of the chest.

Faceless did not remain to observe their bloodwork. They simply took off the skin and looked for a new target. There were not many left: Ada had somehow managed to light one of the swordsmen on fire, and the thug rolled on the floor in panic. Sigrid’s sword chopped the air in _whooshing_ arches, and her sweaty-faced opponent missed their scythe-like swings with the breadth of a hair. In her bloodied armor, hair half-open and messy, she looked like an angel of death. But that was not the most terrifying part.

That was the fact that Sigrid was smiling.

Suddenly something whipped by Faceless’ ear. _An arrow._ He turned towards the direction it came from, and saw a lone figure standing in the shadow, holding a longbow. The archer stood half-obscured behind a wall – a mere young boy with red hair and pimples. His face was pale and sweaty as he took another arrow and aimed it towards Ada. The elf managed to dodge, but the arrow scraped a red gush on his temple. Ada let out a low, animalistic roar, which echoed from the walls and made the fires on the walls flutter.

Faceless established eye contact with the archer, beginning a slow, purposeful stroll. The archer would not shoot anyway.

“Why are you doing this?” the archer demanded. “Why won’t you leave us be?”

Faceless came closer. “I could ask you the same.”

“It’s not your business.” The archer’s grip on his weapon was steady and professional, but his heart was pounding like a drum. “Who are you?”

“We are simply a group of strangers with a common goal. But if you truly wish to know why _I_ am here, look in the mirror.” Faceless no longer sounded like themselves. Their voice was the high-pitched tone of a young archer, their body the young archer’s body. His mirror image. “You came here, because you had no other choice, did you not? Because you’re in trouble.”

The archer opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“You’re being hunted by dangerous people. They won’t stop looking for you, until they’ve found you. That’s why you went as far from them as you could. Somewhere, where you’d never be found. But hiding isn’t enough. You’ll need protection, too. That’s why you joined these thugs.” Faceless nodded towards the corpses on the floor. “Their leader promised you protection, on the condition of a favor.”

“You know nothing of me!”

“You’re tired of this, aren’t you? Hiding. Running away. Being treated as a killer. You made one mistake, and for that, you’ll be forever judged. You’d do anything to get rid of the taint. That’s why you accepted this mission, although you knew the risks. Perhaps a part of you even wanted to fail. So you’d finally be free of the pain.”

The archer strung their bow. “Shut up!”

“The truth hurts – I know, because I’m just like you. But there’s one key difference. I’ll never be free. That’s why I envy you.” Faceless spread their arms. “So, shoot me. Do it. See, what’ll happen.”

The archer’s hands were shaking now, but Faceless had a steady hand. They did not hesitate as they strung their arrow. They could not even stop themselves. For that was their curse.

Their body was no longer their own.

“You won’t shoot yourself”, Faceless said. “You won’t dare.”

“I will”, the archer said. “You’re not me.”

Neither of them however had the chance to shoot, for _something_ rolled across the room and pounded the archer onto the floor in a flash of brown. When Faceless recovered from the initial shock, they could only see the archer’s legs. The rest of him was covered beneath a large brown bear, which had sunk their teeth in the archer’s arm. The archer cried and screamed as if he was being eaten – which wasn’t surprising at all in the situation.

“NO! Don’t kill me! Please!”

 _A bear?_ Faceless thought. _Where the fuck did that come from?_

Only then did they notice that Ada was no longer anywhere to be seen. The brown bear sunk their teeth in a second time, and suddenly the resemblance was clear. The color scheme was definitely Ada’s. Because the bear _was_ Ada.

“Stop!” the archer begged, delirious from pain. “I’ll tell you everything I know! I swear!”

The bear didn’t listen. It raised a mighty paw, lifted its snout and roared so loud Faceless’ ears rang.

“NOOO!”

Faceless looked around, letting the enchantment fall. All the thugs were now unconscious or dead. Sigrid was just finishing off the last. She swept her sword against her clothes and looked left and right for new enemies. Her face was no longer twisted in a terrifying smile, but somewhere beneath the still mask, barely concealed violence still bubbled. Ada-bear was still munching on the archer’s arm. The boy didn’t even have energy to scream. He simply wept in agony.

“I did nothing… I simply had to guard the doors… this is all _his_ fault…”

The words seemed to awaken a thought within Sigrid.

“Let him go”, she commanded Ada, in her usual, guard-like tone. “He may know something. ADA!”

At the sound of its name, the bear froze. It detached its blood-dripping teeth and took a few steps backwards, standing still in the corner of the room.

“Nooo…” the youngster moaned, voice hoarse. “No more…”

“We won’t hurt you anymore”, Sigrid swore. “If you’ll tell us, what happened here.”

“This was Cinnabar’s doing”, the archer cried. His hand was nothing but minced meat. It was quite clear that he’d never shoot a bow again. “I did nothing! We just had to guard the doors, that’s all!”

“Cinnabar?” Sigrid asked. “Who is he?”

“Our leader. He asked us to guard the doors. To kill anyone, who came too close.”

“So you killed Varith”, Nevis understood. “And Ruth.”

The boy shook his head. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“The druid and city guard who came here”, Sigrid said.

“They came too close… they shouldn’t have… Cinnabar…”

“Why?” Blue sparks flared in Sigrid’s eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“He just wants to fix it”, the boy said. Blood gushed from his arm. All color was draining from his face. “That’s what he said… when I last saw him…”

“When was that?”

“Four… days… ago…”

“Where is he now?”

“Behind the doors…” the boy’s eyes were drooping closed. “Below…”

Sigrid blinked, as if she didn’t fully understand what she was hearing. “Below? What do you mean?”

The boy coughed blood. The boy would die, unless they did something. And they still needed him.

“Wait!” Faceless yelled. They crouched over the boy and slapped his cheeks. “You said something else, too. That Cinnabar wanted to fix something. What was it?”

The boy said something, too quietly to hear. Faceless bended over closer, pressed their ear onto the boy’s mouth. But the word Faceless heard made no sense. The syllables could have meant anything.

“What did he say?” Sigrid asked.

Faceless shook their head, helpless. “I don’t know.”

*

Sigrid’s heart was heavy as she eyed the destruction around her.

The basement floor was littered with bodies. None of the thugs had been left alive. The red-haired archer-boy just drew his last breath. Nevis shook and slapped him, but the boy did not awaken. Of course not. He was already dead.

How had they let things to go that far?

“He knew something”, Nevis said, quietly. His face was hard, and there was pain behind his eyes. “I’m sure of it.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it now”, Sigrid said. “We’ll simply need to move forward.”

Nevis nodded, then rose up slowly and released a heavy sigh. His movements were stiff and slow as he dug a bottle of water from his bag and poured it on his hands to wash them clean. Sigrid noticed that Nevis washed his hands almost obsessively, scrubbing clean each joint and fingernail.

Sigrid swiped the stray hairs from her forehead and steadied her breath. Focused once more on being Sigrid, a member of the city guard.

 _Freya,_ she realized then.

Freya was still motionless on the floor, but the protective shield around her had dissipated. Sigrid went to her and bended over, checked her body for bruises and listened to her breath. All seemed to be well. She was simply unconscious.

“Ada?” Sigrid asked. “Could you wake her up?”

Her only answer was a growl.

Only then did Sigrid remember, that Ada was no longer Ada. In the center of the room there was still a massive brown bear, albeit a less bloodthirsty one. It almost seemed peaceful. Its black eyes were intelligent, perhaps even sad. They were no doubt Ada’s eyes.

“Ada”, Sigrid repeated, although it felt strange talking to a bear. “Could you… turn back into an elf?”

“Uuuurrhhh”, the bear replied.”

“What did that mean? Yes or no?”

“Uuurhh.”

“Very well”, Sigrid raised her brows. “How does this transformation-thing even work? Or on a second thought, don’t reply. I wouldn’t understand anyway.”

“Uurh.”

Sigrid exhaled and turned towards Nevis. The half-elf was still maniacally scrubbing his hands, although they were already clean.

“Nevis?”

There was no response. As if Nevis did not even hear her.

“Nevis”, Sigrid repeated. Still nothing. Was he ignoring her on purpose?

“Hey!” Sigrid began to lose her patience. “Asshole!” She threw her glove at Nevis, and it hit him in the middle of the face. The half-elf awakened instantly, and his brows furrowed in annoyance. “What the fuck?”

“Wake up. Your hands are clean already.”

Nevis blinked, then looked at his hands. A slight tremble ran through them, continuing all the way onto his back. He shuddered and straightened his back.

“Yes. What is it?”

“Could you get Freya to awaken? Ada isn’t being very helpful.”

“Uuuurh.”

“Sure.” Nevis pulled out a small jar of white powder, like salt. He walked over to Freya, opened the jar and set it under Freya’s nose. It effected immediately. Freya inhaled deeply and began to cough as if she was suffocating. Nevis put out the jar and offered Freya water to subdue the slimy coughs. The dwarf opened her eyes and sat up carefully. Her fluffy hair was even more disheveled than usually.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You fainted. There was a fight. But you were unharmed. Ada protected you.”

“Urh.”

Freya gasped as Ada-bear’s hot breath tickled her back. She turned over slowly, and only then did Sigrid realize, what a stupid idea this had been. Freya might faint again from sheer shock!

But to Sigrid’s surprise, Freya’s expression was not horror, but pure glee.

“Ada!” the dwarf jumped up and threw her hands around Ada. Or around the bear’s face. Compared to him, she was very tiny. “Thanks!”

“Uuurhhh???”

Sigrid’s reaction was practically the same. This was _not_ what she had expected.

“May I ride on your back?” Freya asked the bear. “May I may I may I?”

Ada-bear bowed his head, as if he was nodding. Freya was glad.

“Really? Thank you thank you thank you!”

Freya pattered over to the bear’s flank and tried desperately to climb on top. It was a tad difficult, for Ada was a bit too high for the dwarf to climb. She began to jump and reach upwards in frustration.

“I’ll help you”, Sigrid sighed. She went to Freya, then lifted her onto the bear’s back. Freya was surprisingly heavy for a dwarf.

“What now?” Freya asked as she swung her legs next to Ada’s flanks. It was a strange sight indeed – a basement full of corpses, accompanied by the four companions: one human, one half-elf, one bear and a dwarf on its back.

“Now, we move onward”, Sigrid said. “These thugs killed Ruth and Varith. But their orders were from a man named Cinnabar. He should still be here.”

“Behind the doors”, Nevis said. But his voice sounded far away. Suddenly Sigrid realized that Nevis wasn’t standing next to her any longer. His head was peeking from behind a corner to the side. The same corner in which the archer had formerly stood in. “Below.”

“Below?” Freya asked. “What doors?”

Nevis gestured for everyone to come closer. Sigrid moved to him, and was greeted by the sight of another hallway, full of doors. So that’s where the thugs were hiding. But the most eye-catching thing was a pair of golden, elaborately carved doors at the end of the hallway. Sigrid wouldn’t have been surprised if they _were_ actually golden. They had to be the fanciest doors she had ever seen. She didn’t understand what they were doing in a place like this.

“These doors”, grinned Nevis.


	7. Edge of the Abyss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The mage lifted his hands slowly, and a series of words in an unknown tongue fell from his lips. Freya felt the air in the room grow heavier, as if a storm was coming. The air had begun to move, and the mage’s sleeves fluttered in the rising wind. Dust swirled, making the air thick, and the ground around the wizard began to vibrate like water. As if something was moving right beneath it._
> 
> _Then, the skeletons came._
> 
> The four companions finally confront the mage, Cinnabar. The ruins below the manor reveal a relic from a forgotten time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, it's been a while! I apologize for taking so long to update. The chapters are getting much longer and I am busier now that I have gone back to work. Thus I will from now on update every other week!

Nevis held a dead snake in his hand. It had been skewered by a crossbow bolt, like a sausage at a bonfire.

“I told you I never miss.”

The floor of the stone chamber was filled with snakes. They formed a half-charred circle around the spotlight that came from the ceiling. Freya recognized this space. The hole was the same one that she had fallen through after examining that strange statue in the yard. The glint of gold she and Nevis had thought they had seen, was from the double doors behind them.

“That could be Freya”, Sigrid muttered.

Nevis didn’t seem to mind. “Well, look at that! Another!”

“Uurh”, Ada roared.

Freya looked around. She was still sitting on top Ada the bear. Besides the single spotlight that came from the ceiling, the chamber was almost pitch-dark. It seemed to make Sigrid and Nevis nervous, but Freya was not. She was a dwarf. She belonged underground. But it was not the only reason. Somehow, _this exact spot_ made her feel safe. Or maybe it was the soothing coolness of her pendant against her chest. The further they moved, the colder it felt. Regardless, it did not hurt at all. The pendant seemed almost to give off a light of its own, as the red liquid boiled within. It hummed pleasantly, like a long-forgotten song.

“I don’t get it”, Sigrid said as she paced around the chamber. In the opposite side of the chamber there was another set of doors, but these were heavy, dark iron, almost completely untouched by time. “What are doors like this doing in a place like this? _What_ is this place?”

At those words, the pendant in Freya’s neck pulsed, like a second heartbeat. For some reason, Freya imagined it to be a message. As if the pendant knew the answer to what she did not yet know.

“Maybe we should go and find out”, Nevis stated, dryly. He had already moved to the next doors, and was trying to pull them open. Nothing happened. He then tried pushing, but that didn’t help either.

“Ada?” Nevis asked. “A little help?”

“Urh”, Ada replied. This time, his growl was slightly more reluctant. Freya kicked Ada’s side, urging him forward, but Ada remained still.

“I don’t speak bear. What is it?”

Ada’s paw clawed the ground. Freya felt the bear’s weight fall forward, as if he was nodding towards the doors. Ada’s paw clawed again. His breath came quick, nervous.

“You sense something? Behind the doors?”

“Uraah”, Ada answered, gently. Freya translated it into a _yes._

“Be ready”, Sigrid said. “For anything.”

Freya commanded Ada forward, and Ada moved, although still reluctantly. The bear scraped the ground with its paw, and then they were dashing, flying towards the doors. Their golden surface let out a bell-like sound as Ada, Nevis and Sigrid struck them with their whole weight.

The doors were flung open, revealing another chamber behind them. But this was not only stone. The high, circular space was surrounded with strange, dark pillars, along which spiral-like vines clambered. Behind them, ancient rock pillars stood, much like the statue Nevis had found in the garden. Blue flames burned on sconces on the walls. The ozone-like smell of magic hung in the air.

“Welcome”, a low voice rumbled from the center of the chamber, “and goodbye.”

A figure stepped out from behind the pillar. Freya had seen mages before, but never in her life had she seen anyone who looked quite as… mage-y. The man was tall and bald, and his chin was covered with a long beard. His face was gaunt and skeletal, and from their midst, a pair of deep-sunken eyes stared. He was dressed in a long, blue gown with flowy sleeves and golden details. From behind them, sharp-nailed hands flashed.

The mage lifted his hands slowly, and a series of words in an unknown tongue fell from his lips. Freya felt the air in the room grow heavier, as if a storm was coming. The air had begun to move, and the mage’s sleeves fluttered in the rising wind. Dust swirled, making the air thick, and the ground around the wizard began to vibrate like water. As if something was moving right beneath it.

Then, the skeletons came.

Their skeletal hands exploded through the earth, reaching towards the ceiling of the chamber. Bones clattered, as four skeletons slowly rose from the ground. Their bones were dark and covered in dirt, and some of them were even missing a few – one a jaw, another a hand. Still, they were unbelievably… alive.

“Ghosts!” Freya cried out.

“Necromancy”, Nevis whispered.

Sigrid drew her sword. The skeletons began lumbering towards them.

“This is nothing yet”, Nevis said as he strung his arrow. “They’re just piles of bones, after all. Cute, really. It’s much more disturbing if the body still hasn’t completely decayed. The chin hangs half off, eyes wide in their sockets. Sometimes there are even worms…”

“Not now, Nevis”, Sigrid interrupted. One of the skeletons was now dangerously close, and Sigrid was swinging her sword to keep it away. Nevis shot his first arrow at the skeleton. It slid clean through its ribcage. Nevis cursed.

“Who are you?” Sigrid roared at the mage, as she swatted her sword at the skeleton. Her sword scraped at bone, but it had no effect whatsoever. The skeleton simply powered on.

The mage did not stop his conjuring to reply. In fact, he was barely visible anymore – the cyclone hid him behind swirls of earth, and the only indicator of him being there was the continuing presence of the skeletons. One of them reached a hand towards Ada, and Ada groaned and swatted a paw at it. Nothing happened. As if the skeletons were invulnerable.

But why wouldn’t they be? They were dead.

“Wait!” Freya cried out as she understood, what they needed to do. “They’re not hurt! Regular weapons won’t do a thing!”

Nevis strung and shot another arrow. It struck a skeleton in the middle of the skull, but still the creature moved on. Sigrid’s sword did no damage. Ada’s flailing was useless. Freya knew that she was the only one who could do anything.

So she closed her eyes and let herself fall into the dark.

It was cold. Freya stood in the midst of shadows, alone. For some reason she was no longer in a dark chamber, surrounded by skeletons, but somewhere else. In a place she had seen in her dreams. Or memories?

Freya was alone – but in reality, she wasn’t. She never was truly alone. There was always another, a _presence,_ living under her skin and aiding her in need. Because of a pact she had made long time ago. The reason to why she had lived, when everyone she loved had died.

Freya’s lips formed the words in an unknown tongue. _Agrakaan. Urkoth._

Urkoth responded. Fed the cold flames in her chest. Coaxed them. A coldness spread from Freya’s chest into her whole body. It cooled the air, froze all movement. Stopped the approach of the skeletons and each particle of dust suspended in the air.

Freya felt her body go stiff, and a terrible scream exploded from her mouth, making the earth shudder. An ancient power coursed through her. Her vision was entirely red. And for a moment, the world was nothing but deep, all-consuming _hatred._

*

”UURRRAAHHHH!”

A scream tore Ada’s lungs. All of his cells were on fire. An unbearable, searing pain tore up his body as muscles expanded and contracted, as bones tore apart and fused into one. A bear’s body turned back into the body of an elf. Strength waned from his body and left him a shattered shell. The world turned sidewards as he crashed on his side, unable to move or catch a breath. With his blurry eyes he saw, how a cold, red flare passed through the air. Bones clattered to the ground and grinded into blue dust. A deep silence fell, among which Ada could hear his heartbeat, louder than ever before. Yet each thrum was a battle.

It took long for the thrums to subside, for his lungs to draw breath again. There was still pain, but it no longer paralyzed him. Carefully, Ada lifted one finger, then another. The weight of the yellow jewel felt calming on his finger. Ada stroked it with his thumb, and slowly, one breath at a time, he felt his body heal. The ring drew power from every living thing around him: from the vines circling the pillars, the worms groveling in the mud, the fungi growing on the walls. But the act did not weaken them. It was a symbiosis, of sorts. The connection strengthened them all.

Once Ada managed to stand up again, he noted that he was not the only one, who had fallen due to the pressure wave. Only Sigrid and Nevis were standing, although unsteadily. The mage was in the worst condition of them all. His breath was ragged, and he could not resist, as Sigrid grabbed his hands and tied them behind his back.

“You are Cinnabar?” she asked.

The mage gave an unpleasant snarl. “And you are?”

“Sigrid, from the City Guard. You are under arrest for murder, necromancy, and attacking a City Guard.”

Cinnabar’s laugh was like breaking glass. “City Guard. Always sticking their noses where they don’t belong.”

Sigrid pulled the rope tighter. “Quiet, villain. Save your words to the judge.”

Nevis began emptying the mage’s pockets. He pulled out a few scrolls, a magic wand and a vial of mysterious liquid. The vial he pocketed, the wand and scrolls he handed to Sigrid. Cinnabar grunted.

“You cannot part an old man with his wand?”

“As if that would work on me”, Sigrid laughed. “You have no idea how many old mages have tried the same trick.”

Cinnabar did not respond. Nevis’ hands had moved from his pockets onto the mage’s bag, from which he found a bag of money and a book of some sort.

“What’s in here?” Nevis opened the book from a random page. “Would you look at that!”

Nevis gave a sharp laugh. He continued browsing through the pages, and with each passing page, his amusement grew.

“What is it?” Sigrid asked, brows furrowed.

“Let’s call it…” Nevis lifted a finger and bit his lip, doing everything to not burst into laughter, “a manual for… wand-craft.”

Nevis snickered. Sigrid still had no clue what was going on. “I don’t get it.”

“Damn! That pose would require the removal of a rib!” Nevis flashed the book to Sigrid. “Or look at this – it’s called _attack from behind.”_

Sigrid’s face flushed, flame-red. “Fuck!”

“Fuck”, Nevis giggled to himself. He put the book into safe storage. “This will be of good use.” Nevis showed newly-found respect towards the mage. “Cinnabar. You old fox.”

Cinnabar’s eyes were full of contempt.

“Don’t get too familiar”, Sigrid muttered, cheeks red.

“Business first, leisure then?” Nevis raised his brows. “You’re so boring.”

Sigrid dragged the mage onto his knees. “Enough. Let’s take him back into town. I’ve had enough of this place.”

“Wait.” It seemed as if a thought had occurred to Nevis. “Cinnabar. We spoke to your minion before, in the mansion. We figured out that you came here because you wanted to fix something.”

Cinnabar huffed, loud. “As if a freak like you knew how it worked. Your elven friend, on the other hand…”

The unspoken words hung in the air. Ada felt the heat of eyes on his skin.

_“An kavath van abismyir”,_ Cinnabar spoke, the strangest smile on his lips.

The words made Ada freeze. He, however, was not the only one to react. Nevis’ face twitched minutely – blink, and you missed it.

Sigrid’s eyebrows curled. “What did that mean?”

“It meant that we should investigate this place further”, Ada said. “It goes on deeper, doesn’t it?”

Cinnabar did not respond, but his expression told Ada enough.

“We can’t drag him around with us”, Sigrid yanked the mage’s ropes. “He’d just slow us down. Can’t we leave this to the city guard?”

Ada took a quick glance at Freya, who was now unconscious. She had the worst possible day. “You can cool after him and Freya, while I and Nevis check the remaining caves. We’ll be fine.”

“Do we dare to leave these three?” Nevis pondered, eyes fixed on Cinnabar. “What if he tries to escape?”

Cinnabar huffed so hard his beard fluttered. “Of course I will try to escape.”

Sigrid gave him a chilling glance.

“Go”, he told Ada. “Before I change my mind.”

Ada nodded. He seemed to see something in the back of the room – perhaps an opening to another space. “Nevis, come.”

*

“You lied to them”, Nevis said as he ran his finger along the vines hanging from the ceiling. The tunnel was very low there, as if it had collapsed sometime in the past. A musty smell hung in the air. _“’An kavath van abismyir.’_ It doesn’t mean what you claimed it to mean.”

Ada narrowed his eyes. In the tunnel they shone yellow, like a cat’s. “What do you think it means?”

_“’We stand at the brink of an abyss’”,_ Nevis replied. “It’s elvish.”

Ada seemed surprised that Nevis had managed to understand it. “That is the direct translation. But do you know what is _means?”_

That, Nevis could not answer.

“That saying marks change”, Ada said. He had to hunch not to pound his head on the ceiling. “It’s been used during all major historical turning points. When the Northern Empire fell. During the Cataclysm of Vuria, the ancient dwarven stronghold. At the onset of the Elvish Rebellion. It means that one age is drawing to an end, and new times are coming. I have not heard it in a very long time. That is why I am surprised to hear it _here._ From the mouth of that wizard.”

“Wizard? You mean sorcerer.”

“No”, Ada shook his head. “There is a large difference.”

“Is that so?”

Ada nodded. “There is magic of three kinds. You either earn it, learn it, or are born with it. I am the latter, for I am a druid. In the human world those with inborn magic are called witches or sorcerers. All I need to create magic is to think – although I often use other means to channel it better. Wizards, like Cinnabar, need help: draughts, magical objects and incantations. Anyone can become a wizard, if they study long enough. That is why most of them are so old.”

“What about Freya, then?”

Ada’s lips curved into a frown. “That is more complicated. Her kind are called warlocks. Their magic comes from a trade. Usually from a spirit or an elder god, and their magic stems from an enchanted object.”

“Like Freya’s pendant”, Nevis understood. Goosebumps crept upon his skin. Was he only imagining it, or had the air grown colder?

“But it was not only the words”, Ada continued, switching back to the former topic, “but _where_ they were said. How much do you know of the high elves, Nevis?”

Nevis’ mind was filled with old memories, faded and torn like wet parchment. “Some. My father was an elf. But I never knew him.”

“Maybe your memory could use a recap, then.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary”, Nevis muttered. He wasn’t in the mood of digging back memories that he had buried for a reason. “Just tell me what this is about.”

“Very well. It is quite clear by now that the mansion above us is no regular house. First I thought this was result of the enchantments put in place, such as the shadows and whispers in the cellar.”

Nevis’ throat tightened. “You heard them too?”

“I did”, Ada shrugged, “but much later than you. I believe Sigrid was affected first, because she is human. Then Freya – dwarves are naturally somewhat resistant to magic. Then you, because of your human blood. I was the last. But even I was not spared. The enchantments were designed to keep strangers at bay, by feeding their worst fears. I am surprised that the humans in the basement withstood them for so long.”

“So they did not cast them?”

“No. The enchantments were here long before. This mansion is far older than them. It was built close to a century ago. It has been abandoned for almost the whole time, unless short-term stays count. Although someone could resist the enchantments for a while, their minds would break in time. I can feel them affecting already, although I have not been here for long. That is why all of us have been acting… strange.”

Nevis thought back on the events of the mansion. Ada was right – the further they had proceeded, the harder staying there became. Even though they had not known each other for long, Nevis had sensed changes in them all. The mansion brought up the worst in them.

“I rarely lose my temper like that”, Ada continued. “I only take an animal form if I am injured or badly threatened. Now the threshold was much lower. I could not control myself or transform back when I wanted to. This is strong magic, old magic.”

“How old?”

“Ancient. This used to be high elven ground. The traces of their magic still linger in these mountains. These tunnels must date back to their time. Golden doors and pillars like those… have not been built in a thousand years.”

“That is why you were affected the slowest”, Nevis understood. “Because you are their descendant.”

“Exactly.”

They continued onward. The tunnel became wider, and suddenly Nevis felt a gust of wind. His fingers felt cold and numb.

“Do you think the builder of the mansion knew of these ruins?”

“Perhaps”, Ada replied. “The house was strange in more ways than one. The statue in the yard, for instance. Or the strange position of the walls. The high elves worshipped the four cardinal directions. They represented their main deities.”

Nevis tried to reach to the back of his mind for names, but it was all a jumble. Humans had borrowed many elven gods, and in time, those four gave birth to forty, then four hundred. Nowadays it felt like everything had a god of its own.

“They were Anasis, south, god of life”, Ada continued, “and the opposite, Tuasis or north, death. The next two were their children Isroth, east, order. And Isroth’s brother, west, chaos. His name was Urkoth.”

Nevis shuddered. _Urkoth?_ Where had he heard that name before?

But Ada said no more. They had now entered a large, circular chamber in the end of the tunnel. Although it was dark, Ada’s figure was still clearly visible. That was due to the dim, red light, coming out of nowhere in particular. The air was freezing – every breath blew a thick cloud of steam in front of them. The ground below their legs was covered in frost. Far in the ceiling, cones of ice hung. Their red color made them seem made of blood.

The room was bare. Compared to Cinnabar’s chamber, this had no decorations of any sort – it seemed like a naturally born cave inside the tunnel. But empty it was not. One single object stood in the center. It was tall, narrow and square-shaped, and it had intricate, silver frames, undarkened by time. The space between them was covered in thin, matte-like glass, crisscrossed with innumerable thin cracks and crevices, like forks of lightning. The floor in front was covered in powdery-fine shards of glass.

“Could that really be…?” Ada’s voice was nothing but a reverent whisper. “There are less than ten of these in the world. I though they were all lost forever.”

Nevis stepped further into the chamber. “It’s a magic mirror. A broken one.”

Ada’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”

Nevis lifted his hand, caressing the surface of the faded mirror, reflecting nothing but dim light.

“Because I have seen one before.”


	8. First Intermission: Only Half Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Half human, half something else.” Rupert watches Nevis through narrowed eyes. “Or did you think you were fully human?”  
>  Nevis doesn’t understand Rupert’s words. Although he knows that he’s different, he’s always thought of himself as human. “What else would I be?”  
> “There’s much more to this world than humans”, Rupert answers. “We dwarves live underground, although we surface occasionally to do trade. But there are many other races, too. Giants and halflings. Elves and fairies. Or do you claim you’ve never seen any of those?”_
> 
> Nevis thinks back on his childhood and youth - his old life back in the Empire, and his later years as a refugee in a small fishing town. That is before he begins to understand who he truly is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a flashback, one of three intermission chapters before we return back to the events of the mansion. All these chapters are written in the present tense to help set them apart from the main story, and they contain a much longer time period than so far. Hope you enjoy this first look into Nevis' past, and why he became the person he is now.

The boy’s face is painted blue with bruises.

He cannot feel his nose, and his lower lip won’t stop bleeding. He wants to cry, but his right eye is swollen shut. Besides, tears would only hurt him more.

“In the name of Deana, what have they done to you!”

Mother’s voice is thick with worry. Nevis feels her thin arms around her, and even this makes him ache.

“Hurts”, Nevis mutters. He tastes blood. Mother pulls out a bottle of cold water and presses it against Nevis’ swollen face. She repeats Deana’s name, but the pain still remains. If the goddess of healing truly exists, she is not doing her job well that moment.

“What happened?” mother asks. They are sitting together at the kitchen table, and Nevis is quiet as he looks around. The kitchen is bare. The furniture is wooden, old and worn. The moisture seeps through the walls, and the wind blows in through every little crevice. The curtains are tattered and moth-eaten, and from behind them, the view opens up towards the stone wall of the opposite building. The smell of smoke from nearby factories is so sharp that Nevis can taste it on his tongue. That day the smell is especially strong.

“Talk to me, Nevis”, mother begs. “Did the other children do this?”

Nevis nods. Mother sighs, blinking away tears. Nevis has to turn his head away. He cannot stand seeing her shame.

“Why am I like this, mother?”

“Like what?”

“A freak”, Nevis spits the word from his mouth. “Different.”

Mother presses her hand on Nevis’ shoulder. “Stop that. Right now.”

“But it’s the truth. I’m not like the others. Everyone can see it.”

Almost instinctively, Nevis’ finds his hands wondering to his ears. They are almost like human ears, but only _almost._ He has let his hair grow longer to cover them, but it only brings another problem. His hair is silver like an old man’s, although he is just a child. And his skin is pale, too pale, almost translucent. He _is_ a freak.

“I’m not at all like you”, Nevis continues stubbornly. Mother’s hair is dark, her skin a warm brown. Like every southerner has. “Why?”

Mother avoids the question. “There is nothing wrong with you. Children can be cruel sometimes. Do not let their insults get to you.”

But insults do not break noses or split lips. They do not kick at his chest until he coughs blood, or threaten him with a stick on a dark alley. Nevis knows that one day that stick will turn into something sharper. The bullies are bolder every time, and every time there are more of them. Last week there were three. Today, six.

Nevis is afraid that the next time he goes outside will be his last.

But he does not tell mother. She would not understand anyway.

*

Mother has a new job.

The place is called Silver Heights. It is cleaner there than in Ashtown, and the thick windows keep the factory-smells away. Guards patrol the streets, and drunkards or beggars no longer litter every corner.

Still, Nevis does not feel safe.

He still knows that he is different. When he walks with his mother on the street, people stare. They have colorful dresses and fancy hairstyles, up-turned chins and cold eyes.

Mother works in the house of the count. She washes floors and does laundry, makes beds and cooks. The count is young and vain. He most likely does not even remember mother’s name. Mother’s dresses are high-necked and long-sleeved. She claims it to be only etiquette, but Nevis knows the truth. His bruises now decorate mother’s skin. Mother hides them well, but the count hides his strikes even better.

“Why do you let him treat you this way?” Nevis asks, as they sit by the small hearth one evening. The house is bigger than in Ashtown – they have two rooms instead of one – and it is no longer cold or moist. Yet, mother looks sad and small.

“He treats me well.”

“You should not put up with this.”

Now, mother is angry. “Do you want me to quit? For us to go back to Ashtown?”

“I didn’t say that. I just meant that you deserve better.”

“This is the best that I can do. The count pays well. I am grateful to him. It is because of him that we can afford this.”

The window behind mother reveals the starry sky. The air is fresh and clean, but Nevis feels like he is suffocating. There is no love here. Only beautiful and cold things, and even colder people.

“Then I don’t want this”, Nevis says. “No, if you’re hurt.”

“But that is not yours to decide, or is it?”

Nevis holds mother’s hands, but mother does not respond to the touch. Her skin is cold and smooth, like a doll's or a porcelain sculpture's. This place has made her like this. Lifeless. “I just want to help you.”

“Then you should stop”, mother whispers. “You have done already enough damage.”

“What do you mean with that?” Nevis asks.

But mother does not reply. She simply looks forward. The expression on her face is deep, unmasked _hatred._

*

They don’t say long at Silver Heights.

War erupts down south, and the count loses all his fortune. The mansion empties, and work ends. But that is simply the beginning. Mother moves to work at the viscount’s office, but even he is struck by misfortune. A quick job is followed by another, until Silver Heights runs dry of work. First guards disappear from the streets. Then servants and cleaners. Filth and grime collects at every corner, and beggars come with it. They rise up from the lower city, which is already ravished by plague and famine. Ashtown and the industrial districts have been lost long ago. Nothing is left of them but ruins: junkyards of people and their memories.

Nevis and mother pack their things and go. With their last savings they purchase two tickets on board a north-bound caravan. The journey is long and dangerous, but not as dangerous as staying still. So the burning city remains behind, and an endless, stony wasteland opens ahead. They move past the thin pass in the mountains and a creaky bridge hanging over a bottomless abyss. The road crawls over rolling hills and through tunnels that slither underneath. Slowly, the landscape changes, until bushes become trees and the scorching sun pouring rain. Summer turns to fall and fall to winter. Nevis can see it from the movement of the sun – days grow shorter and nights longer. That did not happen in the south. There day and night always lasted equally long.

It is Midwinter when they reach Red River. It acts as the boundary between the Southern Empire and the Northern States. The river is so wide that it almost resembles a sea. The caravan changes to a boat, and even though it is winter, the river is not frozen. It is lined all over by evergreen cypresses and leafy trees. From behind them, countless high towers and colorful roofs can be seen.

“Antropol”, the captain of the boat announces. “The capital city of the world.”

But they do not stop there. The boat goes on further, until the city walls change into smaller blocks and houses. Eventually nothing remains but fields and tiny shacks in the middle of them. Many small villages line the city, and the refugees spread into each of them. Nevis and his mother settle into a fishing village called Ismir. There they rent a room in the basement of a local inn. On the weekends it is difficult so sleep, but they can eat in the kitchen as much as they want – as long as they work in return.

In the service of the innkeeper, mother begins a new job as a money counter. Although she speaks only little of the northern tongue, the numbers are the same everywhere. Nevis helps out in the kitchen whenever he is needed, but according to the mistress of the house, the inn is not a place for a child of his age. So Nevis seeks out work with the fishers. He lowers and raises nets, guts and cuts fish, rows a boat. So pass their first years in Ismir.

Two winters and one spring later Nevis meets the first dwarf of his life.

“Hoy, boy!” a shout attracts Nevis’ attention. It is a foggy summer morning, and Nevis crouches barefoot at the shore, untangling a fishnet. The shout comes from further from the river. In the midst of the light-blue fog Nevis can make out the figure of a lone boat. He hears splashing of water, as the fisher struggles with a jerking pole. “Help!”

The fisher has a strange, sharp accent, which Nevis has never heard before. The voice belongs to a stranger. There are rarely visitors in Ismir, but when it happens, they are received with open arms. That is why Nevis doubts not when he grabs a boat from the beach and takes it out to the river, until the stranger’s boat is fully visible. The man fights with his pole with sweat on his forehead, and the boat tilts dangerously towards the waterline. Nevis stops his boat at the stranger’s boat, holding them together with oars, before he jumps from one boat into another and helps the stranger to pull.

Nevis’ extra weight helps stabilize the boat, but although they pull at full strength, it does no difference. There is a snap and a large splash as the line breaks and the fish swims free. The stranger mutters something in an unknown tongue.

“I’m sorry”, Nevis pulls back. “I shouldn’t have pulled so hard.”

“It wasn’t your fault”, the stranger replies. “I should have bought some stronger line.”

The stranger turns around after collecting the line, and only now does Nevis properly see him. Judging from the bald head and thick, brown beard, the man is clearly adult. Yet he is the same size as Nevis. The man’s whole body is short and stocky, as if someone had tried to push a regular man into a smaller space. A hairy hand moves to scratch at a fluffy mustache.

“What are you staring at?” the stranger asks.

Nevis turns his gaze, ashamed. “Sorry. You’re just… so tiny.”

The stranger huffs. “Your size isn’t too great either. How old are you, boy?”

“Fifteen”, Nevis replies timidly – he knows he looks younger than he is. Despite all his manual labor he is still scrawny, and growing a beard seems impossible. “Since this spring.”

The stranger weighs him with his gaze, but does not judge him. “Thank you for your help with the fish, friend. What is your name?”

“Nevis.”

“Nice to meet you”, the stranger gives out his hand, taking a firm grip that almost lifts Nevis off his feet. “My name's Rupert, of the house of Aruna. Dwarf.”

Nevis furrows his brows. “What?”

“Dwarf.”

“I’ve never heard of one.”

Rupert laughs. “You must be kidding. You’d think one of your kind knew what a dwarf was.”

“One of my kind?”

“Yes. A half-breed.”

“What do you mean with that?”

“Half human, half something else.” Rupert watches Nevis through narrowed eyes. “Or did you think you were fully human?”

Nevis doesn’t understand Rupert’s words. Although he knows that he’s different, he’s always thought of himself as _human._ “What else would I be?”

“There’s much more to this world than humans”, Rupert answers. “We dwarves live underground, although we surface occasionally to do trade. But there are many other races, too. Giants and halflings. Elves and fairies. Or do you claim you’ve never seen any of those?”

“I’m not from around here. I come from far south. Me and my mother came to Ismir as refugees, a little over two years ago.”

“South, you said?” Rupert pulls out a massive pipe, onto which he piles tobacco in a large heap. “From the Empire, you mean. And your father?”

“Dead.”

“Hmm. Killed by the Emperor?”

“Why would he have done that?”

“Your father was an elf, wasn’t he? That’s why the Emperor fights this war. Against nonhumans.”

 _Elf?_ Nevis shakes his head. He’s never heard the word, not before today. “I don’t know. Mother never speaks of him.”

“Oh.” Rupert lights his tobacco and begins to blow thick, grey circles into the foggy morning air. They sit quietly for a moment, listening to the sound of birds and the splashing of water against the hull of the boat. The fog begins to dissipate, revealing the distant towers that line the horizon. “Antropol has many of your kin. You knew that, right? Half-elves. Full elves, too. They have their own district there. The Emperor’s hand does not reach to this side of the river. You’ve missed out on a lot, staying here.”

Nevis looks at his hands, begins to scrub dirt from beneath his fingernails. “It’s not about that I wouldn’t want to go. I just _can’t.”_

“Why not?”

“I can’t leave mother. She got lumbago last winter, and hasn’t been able to move properly since. I take care of her now.”

“I’m sorry”, Rupert says. “Your mother is lucky to have you.”

“I guess”, Nevis replies, although he is far from sure. His stare is fixed on the distant silhouette of Antropol, but he does not truly look at it. Instead, in his mind, he sees mother’s sickly face – hollow cheeks and deeply-sunken eyes. Mother has lost a lot of weight, and Nevis cannot remember, when he last saw her smile. Lately she has only seemed lonely and sad, as if she was already dead. Nevis is the only thing that sparks a light in her eyes.

Nevis has always thought of it as a spark of hope. But these days he has begun to wonder that the perhaps light is not reflected from a lighthouse in the middle of a stormy sea, but from flames that lick at the sails of a ship crashing into the rocks below.

*

As the summer passes, mother’s health improves momentarily. That is when Nevis allows himself to tag along with the innkeeper on a trip to Antropol.

They leave at dawn, arriving to Antropol around midday. The great gates welcome them, and the wagon rolls in along a bumpy cobblestone road. Nevis has not seen that many people in this entire life, although he comes from a city himself. The wagons move in a line – right ahead of them is a yellow, tall wagon, more like a house on wheels. Behind them a pair of white horses pulls a small, dainty carriage, nothing but a parasol and two seats beneath it, on which two women classed in cream-cake like dresses sit, fanning themselves in the heat. From the main road stems an innumerable amount of smaller and larger streets, decorated with papery lanterns and colorful fabrics. No street is empty. There are people off all sizes, heights and colors, and they speak an innumerable amount of tongues. Although most of them speak northern, Nevis occasionally picks up some dialects of the Southern Empire, or other, fully unrecognizable languages, some of which sound soft like water in a creek, some low and guttural like the rumble of the wagon against the cobblestones.

Their wagon rolls uphill, until they arrive to an intersection and turn right towards the sixth district. There they cross wide marketplaces full of exotic scents and bright colors. The wagon stops in the edge of a market, and Nevis follows the innkeeper from one stall to another. A midnight-dark man wearing a blue turban sells them a jar of spice. A bearded dwarven lady peddles apple-flavored tobacco in the corner of the market. They buy strong alcohol from an old woman with eyes of two different colors. A group of rambunctious children run in their feet. But in their midst Nevis can make out older crowd – dwarves and even tinier people, with colorful clothes and pointy hats. Nevis almost trips over into one of them, as he is momentarily distracted by a beautiful rainbow ribbon hanging over the market. The tiny woman screams and almost falls over, but Nevis manages to hold out his hand to help her stay on her feet.

“Sorry”, he says. “I didn’t see you.”

“No problem”, the woman replies. She sounds like a grown-up, although her body size seems otherwise shrunken. “Halfling’s life.”

The woman leaves and disappears among the taller crowd.

 _Halfling,_ Nevis ponders. He remembers that Rupert mentioned them. This city is full of oddities. Wherever Nevis looks, he sees something he has never seen before. Everything is either fascinating or frightening. They spend perhaps an hour at the market, until they move over to the next spot. This marketplace is bigger and louder than the earlier – the screams of the merchants remind Nevis of an auction. Roughly 30 feet away a shouting match escalates into fisticuffs between two buyers, when Nevis suddenly notices a glint of gold in the corner of his eye. The crowd parts cleanly in two and makes way for a crowd of soldiers dressed in clinking armor. As Nevis sees them, he flinches and steps backwards, shrinking himself as small as he can. The soldiers, however, pay no attention to him – they simply focus on tearing the troublemakers away from each other, then leave together with them. Everything continues as normal, as if nothing ever interrupted the peace.

“Who were they?” Nevis asks.

“The Legion”, the innkeeper replies. “Peacekeepers of the north.”

Nevis’ heart is pounding. He feels as if everyone is staring at him, although no-one actually does. Everyone simply focuses on their everyday tasks. If Nevis really thinks about it, no-one has paid almost any attention to him throughout their whole trip to the town. He could as well be invisible.

Nevis rather enjoys the feeling.

For the first time in his life he forgets himself, focusing only on relishing in the moment.


	9. Second Intermission: Water from Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I’m looking for… answers.”  
>  “Why?”  
> It is a difficult question. Nevis doesn’t really know the answer either. But ever since he saw the mage for the first time, there has been a fire inside him, a yearning towards something unknown and unreachable. As if he misses a place he has never been to.  
> “I want to know who I am.”_
> 
> Nevis' visits into Antropol makes his mother worried. They come to a disagreement, and Nevis must find new ways to discover the truth of his past.

Nevis cannot stop thinking about Antropol.

The whole village of Ismir has gathered to listen at the Innkeeper, who is retelling the story of their visit in the city. He cuts himself a piece of freshly-fried chicken and washes it down with tasty, dark beer, which he bought an entire barrel from a northerner trader. Nevis sits next to the Innkeeper, and they are surrounded by familiar villagers. One of them is the bear-like ranger Jonsson – one is bony priest Odvin, and one giant-like smith Timea, whose long, red hair falls in two braids on her breasts.

“Blimey, this sauce makes me spit fire!” Jonsson bellows as he dips a piece of chicken onto a deep dish. His face is red, and tears glisten in his eyes. “What’s in this?”

“Cream, pepper, and a dash of hellroot”, the Innkeeper states. He throws the bones from his chewed chicken to the large mastiff lying at his feet. “It’s all the way down from the Empire.”

“By Ragna! Are you trying to kill me!”

The priest Odvin crosses his fingers in prayer. “Great Aguila, lord of Waters, grant Jonsson strength into this difficult endeavor…”

“The gods cannot help him”, Timea shakes her gargantuan fist. “There’s only one thing that helps now! More ale!”

The Innkeeper’s wife turns a tap behind the counter, and then carries a trayful of pints into the table. Jonsson downs his own in just a few gulps. Odvin declines politely, as a holy man should. One of the pints lands in front of Nevis.

“I can’t”, Nevis tries to pass the pint back to the Innkeeper’s wife. “I’m not of age.”

“You deserve it”, the Innkeeper states. “You were a big help today.”

Nevis blushes. “Really?”

“Exactly. What would you say if I asked you to help me again? Let’s say… next week. If it only suits your mother.”

Nevis takes a peek behind the counter, where he can just make out the back of his mother’s head. She is sitting in the corner, weighing coins in a silver scale and writing down the numbers diligently. Unless Nevis knew that she was there, he never would have noticed her.

“Maybe”, Nevis sais. He does not let it show, but his heart feels close to bursting. Antropol has been everything he could have expected – and more. He cannot understand how he could wait an entire week to get back there.

“Excellent”, the Innkeeper pats Nevis on the back. “A toast?”

Nevis nods and raises his cup. “To Antropol?”

“To Antropol”, the Innkeeper nods.

“To its wild women”, Jonsson raises his eyebrows suggestively.

“To the clean churches”, Odvin adds.

“And the awesome ale!” Timea finishes. “Cheers!”

The cups clink against each other. The ale is dark and cold. But deep inside, Nevis is full of warmth and light.

*

The antropolian fire artist dances two torches around his body.

The flames lick at his bare arms and chest, but he feels no pain. The flames do not harm him, for he is blessed by Ragna, the god of fire. The flying sparks draw red arches in the darkening evening. The entire square flares with light, as the artist pours firewater into his mouth and blows it towards the torch. He blows fire. He _is_ fire.

A thunderous applause rolls through the fourth district. Nevis claps so loud that his hands hurt. He has never seen anything this… incredible. This… magical.

That is before he sees actual magic.

The woman’s stall is decorated throughout with the symbols of Aguila, the god of water: crystalline water droplets, alchemical triangles and blue shards of glass. Wind chimes the amulets and flutters a woman’s black tresses, the long helms and sleeves of her indigo dress. She is almost unnaturally beautiful. Her eyes are the color of liquid gold: intelligent and somehow ageless. Although Nevis tries his best, he cannot quite make out the woman’s age.

The woman lifts an empty jug from behind the table. The movement is both effortless and deliberate. She moves the jug in an arch in front of the crowd, meeting everyone’s eyes one at a time. When the woman’s eyes meet Nevis’ own, his whole world stalls. Liquid fire flows down his spine, and he cannot move his gaze. And even if he could, he would not want to.

 _“Agus”,_ she whispers in a tongue both familiar and unknown.

A strange scent floods the air. It reminds Nevis of thunder, of the heavy air before a storm. His eyes move to the jug in the woman’s hand.

It is no longer empty.

Nevis rubs his eyes. For a moment he wonders whether he only imagined it all – then the woman tilts her hand and pours the water in a beautiful arc. The water glistens in the light as it falls on the rocks. The crowd sighs in awe. But that is not all. When the woman turns their attention back to her hands, the jug is once again full, and no trace of water remains on the stones below.

Nevis has heard of magic, but he has never seen it before. Before this he never believed that it even existed.

He believes now.

Mother does not.

“The woman conjured water out of air”, Nevis assures, back in Ismir. He and mother sit in the kitchen in candlelight. It is a weekday evening, so the inn is empty, except for a few customers. “I swear it.”

“It was nothing but a trick”, mother undermines. She eats very little: just stale bread and few spoonfuls of soup. Bones are starkly visible beneath her skin, and her wrists are so thin that Nevis could easily surround them with his finger and thumb. “Antropol is full of frauds like her.”

“But she was not a fraud. I saw it, with my own eyes.”

“Then your eyes deceive you.”

Anger flares in Nevis’ chest. “My eyes are fine!”

“Do not yell at me.”

“You have to believe me! It was magic.”

Mother’s spoon scrapes the bottom of her bowl. “Stop making a scene, Nevis. You are behaving like a child.”

“I’m not making a scene! I’m telling the truth!”

“When have you become so stubborn? Has Innkeeper Rolf caused this? Is this because of him?”

“I have always been like this.”

“No. You have changed, and I do not like it. You see one trickster on the street, and now you believe in fairies and unicorns? You have become gullible and reckless. I do not want you to spend more time with the Innkeeper. These visits in Antropol are affecting you in the wrong way.”

Nevis feels a sting behind his eyes. It’s like he cannot breathe. When he speaks, his voice trembles with hatred. “You can’t stop me from going. You don’t have the right.”

“I can, and I do. I am your mother. And as your mother I forbid you from going.”

“Why?”

“Because it is too dangerous”, mother replies, but she does not meet Nevis’ eye. “I need you, and I could not handle if anything happened to you.”

 _“You couldn’t handle it?”_ Nevis does not recognize his own voice. He barely notices standing up. The bowl in front of him topples and spills soup on the table. “Here’s one thing you can’t handle! _Me!_ You can’t even look at me! What’s wrong with me, mother? Why do you hate me so much?”

“I do not hate you”, mother replies in a whisper.

“But you don’t love me either.”

Mother nods. A single tear rolls down her cheek. “No.”

*

Summer turns to fall, and Nevis stops going to Antropol.

He returns to the river and does what he has always done before. Lowers and raises the nets. Guts and cuts fish. Rows a boat. Antropol is the past now. But on bright days when Nevis can make up the silhouette of the city in the horizon, Nevis clings onto fragments of memory. He hears the hustle of a crowd on a bustling market. Sees the flutter of colorful flags in a hot summer wind. Catches the reflection of light in the mage-woman’s eyes.

Every now and then, on weekends, the Innkeeper tells stories of the city. Nevis sits in the kitchen and eavesdrops, although all he hears fills him with deep yearning and sadness. He hears the story of a dwarven merchant selling magic boxes that play music. Of flying machines with hearts of metal and lungs of steam. Of forever-burning lamps that can be lit with just a switch.

Nevis is just about to quit, when a part of the conversation catches his attention.

“Fuck, Rolf, where did that come from? Does it hurt?” It’s the voice of Timea the smith.

Innkeeper Rolf drags a breath between his teeth. “A bit. Don’t touch it.”

“Oh, sorry. Damn, that looks bad. Will it ever grow hair again?”

Rolf laughs nervously. “It’s not that bad. Just a scratch.”

“A scratch?” This time priest Odvin speaks. “That is as far from a scratch as can be! The skin is all blue! Unnatural, unnatural indeed!”

“That’s no regular wound”, Timea continues.

“No. I was caught in the crossfire. In the middle of mages, would you believe?”

“Mages?” Timea almost yells. Odvin begins to pray.

“Not so loud!” Rolf hisses.

“Mages?” Timea repeats in a whisper. “What happened?”

Rolf lowers his voice so much that Nevis has to prickle his ears to hear him. “Well. One moment I was bargaining a merchant on sugar – the other a fireball passes my ear!”

“No way!”

“It’s true. It smelled like thunder. The next thing I knew, the stall was on fire! And this was no regular fire – the flames were blue. I threw myself on the ground, but a spark caught my jacket and burned straight through, all the way down to bone! Like hellfire!”

“By all the gods”, Odvin gasps. “Free us from evil…”

“Then the Legion arrived and put an end to it. But the damage was already done.”

“Talk about good timing”, Timea says. “That was close.”

“Indeed.”

“But mages? What did they look like?”

“They had no sharp hats and robes, if you meant that. These were regular fellows, just like you and me. With one exception.”

“What?”

Rolf waits a moment before he answers. When he does, his voice is just a whisper.

“Elves.”

*

“I’m going fishing”, Nevis lies as he goes outside.

The sun is setting as he hurries to the beach and pushes his canoe through the golden reeds. The oar splits the water, and momentarily the Red River is truly worth its name.

Nevis glances over his shoulder and sees how the docks and low huts of Ismir fade from sight, and the dark falls over the silent land.

He is going to row to Antropol.

The first hours are the easiest. The color of the sky fades from a bright red into a calming purple and deep blue. The canoe glides along the mirror-bright river, and Nevis rows in a sea of stars. The towers of Antropol stand in the horizon like the masts of distant ships.

The third hour is the hardest. Nevis’ muscles ache, and each pull of the oar lights a fire in his veins. A cloud cover arrives from the north, eating up the sky and plunging the land into dark emptiness. However, Nevis has always seen well in the dark, and he does not need his eyes to row. Each movement comes from muscle memory, and the river is clear of traffic at the late hour. The entire world is quiet, save for the song of cicadas and the splatter of the waves.

Once the initial burn passes, the end of the journey goes easy. Nevis loses track of time, and in so doing, himself. The canoe moves forward, the landscape changes. The fields and reeds turn into docks of stone and steel, into harbors filled with ships with magnificent sails. Houses fill the beaches, until the entire landscape is an endless city.

Nevis leaves his canoe near the gates of of Antropol, onto a desolate beach to the side of the city. When he finally rises onto dry land, he barely feels his hands or legs. It is midnight. Nevis stumbles in the gates, breathes in the strange and foreign air, and heads towards the fourth district.

Movement in the city is slow on foot, and it is a long way from one district to another. It takes ten minutes just to get off the main street. The journey to the fourth district lasts three times longer.

Once Nevis arrives, he seeks out the same spot where he saw the elven mage conjure water out of air some months ago. He remembers the place perfectly, for he has repeated the memory countless times. However, there is no sight of the stall. The market is now bare, and the rocks are spattered with dried beer and wine.

The nightly face of Antropol is rough. Where the market at daytime has been filled with honest merchants, wealthy buyers, and families with children, it is now full of shady folk of all kind. Beggars loiter in street corners. Illegal items exchange quick hands. The side-streets are filled with scantily-clad folk with seductive steps. Drunkards totter and dance in the middle of the market, downing booze and drinking off-key. It reeks like smoke and sewers.

“Looking for something, boy?” a strange voice grunts. Nevis smells the stench of booze on his face. He backs off a step. Ashtown has taught him this lesson by heart. Stay away. Don’t get involved. Be invisible.

Nevis’ back bumps into another figure. This time, a woman. Her scant clothing makes Nevis flush. She smells like flowers and fruit. And something else. Something _wrong._

“Hey, handsome”, the woman croons. Her red lips smile, but eyes do not. They are hungry, ravenous. “You lonely?”

Nevis turns around and flees, bolts through the swaying bodies. Someone bumps into him hard, someone else yells into his ear. Once Nevis reaches the end of the market, cold sweat breaks onto his skin. He tries to collect his thoughts, when he suddenly feels a harsh tug on his arm.

The haggard face of a few-toothed beggar stares at him from the shadows. A long-clawed arm tugs at Nevis’ wrist, the other dangles a dead rat in the air.

“BUY IT!” Spittle flies from between the beggar’s teeth. “BUY IT!”

“Get off!” Nevis cries. He stumbles away, his back colliding with the cool wall. Nevis inhales and wipes his hands against the wall almost frantically, although he knows that it won’t help. He feels dirty throughout. A wave of disgust makes his body shudder.

Nevis wants to stick his fingers in his throat and vomit. But his hands are far too filthy to do so.

“Brother!” someone whispers suddenly. For some reason it sounds aimed at Nevis.

Nevis flattens himself against the wall. _Stay away. Don’t get involved. Be invisible._

“Brother!” the whisper repeats, closer, this time. _“Elyen!”_

 _Elyen?_ That wasn’t his name. The whisperer must have mistaken him for someone else.

“You there! Silver-hair!”

Nevis looks around him. No-one around him has silver hair – unless gray counts. “Me?”

“You”, the voice repeats. “Follow my voice, _Elyen.”_

The voice leads Nevis’ gaze away from the bustling market, towards a staircase leading down to a space between two alleys. For some reason this street is empty, although the shadows the tall buildings throw around it would offer an ample spot for shady business. Only one figure stands there.

She is a girl, and everything in her is out of place.

She is wearing a long, silvery-white gown that could be sown out of starlight. Her skin is white and perfect as snow. She does not look much older than Nevis, but there is an air of _maturity_ to her. The strangest detail in her is in her hair. It is long and shiny, and single strands float around her face like fluff from a dandelion, although there is no wind at all. The color is green, like patinated bronze.

She lifts her doll-like face, and her lips spread into the kindest smile Nevis has ever seen.

“What are you staring at? Come on!”

Nevis freezes. “Who… are you?”

“Arissa”, the girl replies, then waves her hand towards herself. “Well? Come, _Elyen._ Let’s go.”

“My name isn’t Elyen. It’s Nevis.”

Arissa rounds her eyes at him. They are as green as her hair. “Did you hit your head, dummie? _Elyen_ means brother.”

“In what language?”

“Elvish, of course. You really must have bumped your head.”

 _Elvish,_ Nevis thinks, without believing his ears. “Are you an elf?”

“No”, Arissa huffs. “I’m like you, dummie. A half-breed. Let’s go.”

Nevis can’t believe his ears. Although he knows he should not trust strangers, there is no lie in the girl’s warm smile. She really wants to help.

Arissa extends her hand towards Nevis. After a moment of hesitation, Nevis steps down the stairs and takes it.

 _“Falael, Elyen”,_ Arissa says. Her hand is smooth and warm, as she leads Nevis deeper onto the alley. “Don’t be afraid.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“There’s a safe place nearby. You can spend your night there.”

Nevis shakes his head. “No. I can’t. I have to find the woman… mage…”

“Mage?”

“Yes. The one who conjures water from air. I came here because of her. I wish to talk.”

“Enna?” Arissa furrows her green brows.

“So you know her? Can you take me to her?”

“Of course I know her”, Arissa laughs. “But if you wish to talk to her, you’ll have to wait until morning. She’s asleep.”

Nevis bows his head in disappointment. “I don’t have until morning.”

“Is this because you hit your head? Or are you terminally ill?”

“Once again – I didn’t hit my head. And I’m not ill.”

Arissa stops. “Wait. Why were you at the market, then? It’s not safe at this hour. Especially not to our kind.”

Nevis searches for words for a long time. “I’m looking for… answers.”

“Why?”

It is a difficult question. Nevis doesn’t really know the answer either. But ever since he saw the mage for the first time, there has been a fire inside him, a yearning towards something unknown and unreachable. As if he misses a place he has never been to.

“I want to know who I am”, Nevis says.

*

Arissa and Nevis sit together in a small courtyard, in the middle of the stone sea.

On their right is a safehouse called the Hearth, a place for lost souls like them. That night the Hearth is almost empty, besides for a few pipe-smoking dwarves and sleepy halflings. When Nevis asks where all the elves are, Arissa’s answer is short.

“We don’t go out at night.”

Nevis runs his fingers along the small crack of moss growing between the stones – as green as Arissa’s eyes. The touch of moss against his fingers makes them feel clean, after all this time. Arissa watches him quietly and patiently. Although Nevis says nothing, a smile decorates Arissa’s face. Nevis is beginning to think that Arissa must smile even in her sleep.

“So, your mother doesn’t allow you to visit Antropol”, Arissa says finally. “Why?”

“I don’t really know”, Nevis replies.

“Couldn’t you just ask her?”

“Mother and I don’t speak to each other anymore. Every time we try, we just end up fighting.”

“Why? Have you done something bad?”

Nevis shakes his head. “That’s the thing! I haven’t done anything.”

Arissa’s voice takes a teasing tone. “So you haven’t been naughty? At all?”

“No!” Nevis’ voice comes out an octave higher than usual. His cheeks feel very hot all of a sudden. “I haven’t. It all began when I told mother about magic. She said that it’s evil and dangerous. That’s why I came here. I wanted to know if it’s true.”

Arissa hums, then bounces gracefully from her seat, so that her white gown moves and reveals her bare feet. Nevis feels her gaze as a touch on his skin.

“Can you use an axe, Nevis?”

The question comes as a surprise. Nevis doesn’t understand what this has to do with magic. Still, he replies. “Umm… yes. Ranger Jonsson taught me.”

“So if you had a log and an axe, you could chop us some wood?”

“Yes. But what would you need wood for? There’s no chimney here…”

“It’s not important”, Arissa grins as she begins to walk in circles around the courtyard. “Back to the axe. Let’s say that after you chopped some wood, you and your mother went to sleep. In the middle of the night you wake to an awful ruckus. A burglar has attacked your home. Because you’ve fallen asleep next to the logs, the axe is within your grasp. What will you do?”

Nevis swallows. “I guess we’d try to escape.”

“It’s not an option. The burglar blocks the door, and you can’t fit through the windows.”

“Then…” Nevis’ throat feels heavy. Old memories flicker in his mind. Dark spots on skin. Dusk on the side alleys of Ashtown, the mean eyes and hands of unkind children. _Pain._

“Then?”

“We’d have to fight”, Nevis says.

“So you would be ready to use the axe to defend your family? Yourself?”

“I would.”

“Good”, Arissa nods. “You do it. You wish there was another way, but there always isn’t. You have to save your mother. You raise the axe. It’s almost like chopping logs. The movement is the same. The target different.”

The thought alone makes Nevis shudder. He clenches his fists so hard his knuckles go white.

“Now, _Elyen,_ tell me. Is the axe evil?”

“No”, Nevis replies. His voice seems to come as if through water. “It’s just a tool. It’s my fault.”

“Exactly. Do you understand what I’m trying to say? Anything good can be used for evil. A knife can cut bread or skin. Herbs can either heal or kill. Words can console or crush minds.”

Arissa stops next to Nevis. But when Nevis has expected to see loathing or pity on her face, there is neither. They are simply understanding and endlessly kind.

“Then… why does mother fear magic so much?” Nevis asks. “If it's not bad?”

This time grief crosses Arissa’s face. “People are always afraid of what they don’t understand.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you liked, you can delight me with a comment or kudos. ♥


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